On June 24th, 2022, I was working in a Planned Parenthood clinic, where I crouched in the back hallway in my scrubs and sobbed for 30 seconds before going back to the front desk to greet a family who’d come—six or seven of them—to support their daughter/granddaughter/sister through her appointment. We knew the decision was coming and we knew what it would be. Some of our patients also knew it was coming, and some didn’t. I don’t really want to talk about that day.
On June 24th, 2023, I was working for Partners in Abortion Care (please buy our patients some heating pads or blood pressure monitors or gift cards so they can access supplies like underwear and medication and meals and coffee while they travel for their care, while I have you here and captive and at my tender mercy, thx) and sending some funding emails, and swimming in the cold ocean alone, and swimming in the cold ocean with friends, and crying in my car after a man I didn’t know entered my space with more aggression than I’ve experienced in years, and gripping someone’s hand as tightly as I could while we let out a collective scream. I don’t really want to talk about that day, either.
Tomorrow—June 30th, 2023—not an anniversary of anything yet, at least in chaotic calendar kept by my body’s memory, I am driving an hour to pick someone up, driving them another hour to a clinic in another state for their abortion, then making the two-hour journey home when they’re done. I don’t yet know what they’ll need, aside from the ride and the company. I’m taking the car seat and all the other baby-detritus out of my old Blue Soob (what do you call your Subaru Outback? If you’re reading this, I feel like you probably drive one too—at least spiritually.) In case it’s upsetting. I’m looking at my playlists to make sure none of the songs have sneaky parenting- or children-related lyrics. I don’t know if any of this is helpful. I don’t know if they’ll enjoy the ride with me at all, or if they’ll want me to go inside the clinic with them, or anything about what their experience will be tomorrow.
But I know that no matter what, no matter how easy the drive and how smooth the procedure, no matter how surrounded by support and enveloped in love and community and comfort they are, they might wake up on June 30th, 2024 with an ache that can’t be soothed and a desperate desire to exit their own body and escape their own mind. They might need to submerge their whole body in the freezing ocean and scream. For this person, this stranger I’m lucky enough to spend my day with tomorrow, June 30th, 2024 might be a real heartless stone-cold bitch of a day.
What’s a day that lives in you? Or used to? Whenever it falls, whether it catches you by the throat or you see it coming miles and months away, a slow dreaded shadow creeping toward and then past you, I hope you spend it easy and comfortable this year. I hope you have what you need, even if that’s cold ocean water and a safe private place to scream and someone to cry with.
I love you.