The Rockets' Red Glare

Proof through the night that my unease was still there

The Fourth of July is a fraught holiday in these troubled times. As we enter midsummer, we must reckon with our past, survive our present, and contemplate our future (move over, Toby Ziegler!). But this year political anxiety gave way to one decidedly more personal.

I spent most of the day feeling off and wasn’t sure what to attribute this to. Could it be postpartum hormones wrecking their havoc? Could it be my industry’s standstill stretching into its third long month? Could it be my professional standstill stretching into its third long year? Could it be my period, which cruelly returned despite the world’s empty promises that breastfeeding would keep it at bay? Could it be dwelling in a neighborhood of hot concrete during the height of summer?

While all of these seemed plausible, my husband pointed out the fact that on this holiday, Los Angeles literally erupts in an explosion of fireworks. The air is littered with constant pops beginning in late May and the season reaches a dramatic denouement the night of The Fourth. Cats and dogs and other creatures, in their infinite wisdom, hide. Humans, in our infinite stupidity, go outside and pretend to be normal. Tooting casually around a city that sounds like it’s under siege probably did not lower my stress level.

The air of chaos is also permeated by another distressing sound: that of my child resisting sleep. Getting her to sleep just outside of our reach is (you guessed it) just outside of our reach. My husband has been taking the brunt of this task, soothing and shushing as she thrashes around, desperate for a snooze. I sit nearby, reaching for my phone like a whiskey bottle, trying to anesthetize myself to a noise that thousands of years of evolution have fine tuned my entire body to hear. The status quo felt unsustainable, the new reality feels untenable.

So it’s been a week of screams and explosions, the call coming from both inside and outside the house, and I think my body has responded the only way it knows how: freaking the hell out. We all resort to self-soothing. My cat buries himself deep in the closet. My daughter thrusts her thumb in her mouth and desperately sucks it, kicking her legs to the side. I sink into the couch and watch the sociopaths of Vanderpump Rules ruin their lives. Some neighbors set off fireworks, maybe feeling happy to start the explosion rather than deal with its effects, for once.

The day after I feel almost hungover—tired, still anxious, still on my period. I need relief from the guilt of shirking my motherly duty of holding my baby forever for the rest of my entire life. My brain can’t take the separation, my back can’t take the holding.

I plonk the baby in her stroller and go on a long, hot walk. I realize that some days you just feel crappy and tired nothing will make you feel better. The air quality has a warning on it, due to Roman Candle flecks wafting in the air or whatever happens when a million fireworks go off in less than twenty four hours. I decide to just drink a lot of water and commit to feeling defeated. The truth is you can’t win ‘em all—just ask the British Empire.