June 19

I think about my Dad almost every day, in stray bits and pieces.  It really is as if, after so many years of shoving thoughts of him away because they were too painful, his old self is drifting back to me memory by memory, mote by mote.  

Today I thought about my father's financial care, guidance, and wisdom. In high school, he opened a bank account for me and taught me how to write a check and balance my checkbook.  He opened a credit card for me so I could start to build credit and taught me how to pay it off in full every month.  And when I had my first job as a teenager, he opened a Roth IRA for me and contributed the amount of my earnings to get me started.  Before I turned 20, I had credit history and a retirement account. 

I didn't understand how valuable any of this was, or the extent to which it showed his love, until it was too late to meaningfully thank my Dad, and I'm sorry for that. But I'll try to do the same for my kids.

June 1

We sent Margaret back to daycare today. I recognize my feelings as post-traumatic, the same visceral slackening I've felt after staggering off of bumpy airline flights and navigating through other, worse, trials. Apparently my body experiences at-home parenting as trauma.  I am not surprised.

The other kid is still here, but one six year-old is so much less of a grind than one six year old competing for attention with a one-year-old.

I feel bad that it is Margaret, who was the only one of us to flourish under quarrantine, who bears the brunt of our family's needs.  And I feel bad that we are exploding her, and ourselves, and her caretakers to this risk.

But wow, it's quiet right now.