This is happening

There’s a giddiness that comes when standing at the precipice.  I remember a similar feeling waiting in line to buy gallons of water in preparation for hurricanes in Key West.  Strangers would turn to each other and compare preparation status.  “My shutters are up but I still have to buy the sandbags.”  “They have them on sale at Home Depot.”  It was terrifying but thrilling.  I felt a similar community feeling during COVID.  It was so scary but also a little exciting.  The whole world was watching the same channel and cheering their health workers from the windows.

USAID went dark today.  There’s no website, we don’t have access to our buildings, most of my colleagues were fired.  I’m waiting for my termination notice any second now.  And again, there’s a little spark of electricity.  I’m on signal chats where people who made it into the building are offering to pick up things for their coworkers at their desks.  People are downloading data from websites before they go down. There’s a protest outside the main USAID building.  Once again terrifying but… a little thrilling.  Only this time it feels misplaced to me.  I don’t think things are going to be ok.  This is no quick hurricane and even if we have a vaccine, it won’t be allowed to be distributed.

We were so close to epidemic control of HIV across the world.  A status we clawed our way to over decades.  These changes are going to kick out the fingers of our progress and plummet.  The damage is done, and it will leave more than a scar.  And every day brings a new terrifying reality.  It makes you wonder how long did it actually take for Rome to fall?  At what point will history remember us as the people who stayed in Gilead for too long?  Next month? Next week? Tomorrow?

My new baby is sleeping next to me (obviously or how else would I have had the time to write this).  I had so much more optimism when we decided to bring her (painstakingly) into this world.  Maybe the ultimate action of optimism, an oath that I saw hope enough to bring her into it.  And now a silenced part of me is terrified that my hope was naive and stupid.  But when I look at her beautiful, sleeping face a rage of tears and fire stick in my throat and make my hands shake.  She is the reason that me and her father will fight.  I don’t know what that will look like yet, but I dare you to fuck with us. 

She's stirring so I have to stop writing and begin my guessing game of is it poop, hunger or gas?  And that will distract me from the constant pings on my phone.  But I know tonight when I'm in her dark and quiet nursery instead of a lullaby I'll whisper, I will fight for you.  I will fight for you until you can fight beside me.