I’m going to say a thing and then follow it up with a longer thing, and that longer thing will be possibly upsetting for some people and will have a content warning. Feel free to flip through and read, or skip all of it. It’s really just to get it out.

I’ve been thinking a lot about kindness. Softness, in particular. It’s a tricky thing, at least for me. Something that I’m at times not strong enough to pull off, and at others, “too strong”. It takes a lot to be soft. To carry yourself with softness. With empathy. It can easily be met with derision or ridicule, and some may even try to exploit it. I still believe we need it. Possibly even more so in those moments. Possibly in every moment. Or at least close enough to be readily accessible at any time. And sometimes that is really fucking hard. At least for me. And the harder I see the world being, big and small, the harder it is to find softness in myself. But that also compounds the feeling that I’ve had for a while now. The feeling that whatever best version of us there is, of all of us, humanity, society, pick your term for it, the best version of that we can think of is going to take an ability for as many of as possible to approach as many others as possible with as much softness as we can muster. 

Okay, the other thing. 

CW: miscarriage and the immediate aftermath. 

Some of you may know parts or all of this story, some don’t. Many years ago, my partner at the time became pregnant. It wasn’t planned, but young as we were, we were going to figure it out. We made some plans, talked things over, got nervous, got excited, got nervous again, made more plans. Until one day we went to a check up and none of the plans applied anymore. 

At some point after that moment, when the initial shock of the news fades a bit, there is a realization that this experience isn’t over. There is more to be dealt with. More hospital visits and plans to be made. Young, naive, and quite frankly, dumb as I was, it was the first time I realized that what happens after that moment is often times the same procedure that occurs during an abortion. 

We made plans for that. Our shared car needed work, so I would bring the car in, her mom would take her to the hospital, and I would come later to pick her up. I mention this detail for 2 reasons. 

1.  this is a nice little encapsulation of what a shit partner I was at this time in my life. I was pretty regularly a selfish prick of a boy, rarely thinking of anything before myself, and on those infrequent occasions when I did, probably being pretty whiny and petulant about it. It was a practical plan, but I don’t even remember having much to say about it, and at no point did I even consider pushing back on it. To figure out a way that I be the one to drive her in, wait it out, be there for her when it was over. It wasn’t the first or last time I’d act like that, but it’s one that sticks with me.
2. It made what I saw that afternoon that much more drastic to me. 

I barely recognized her. The exhaustion. The sadness. The emptiness. A physical toll had been taken that I was fully unprepared to see. Again, I should have been. Looking back, it feels pretty obvious. And I imagine any of you reading this far probably understand it far better than I did in that moment, and quite possible better than I do now. 

I think about that experience from time to time. Different aspects of it. How it changed me in different ways. And how for all the ways it changed me, I watched it do something to the person closest to me that I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around. 

I’ve been watching the reactions to the recent Supreme Court ruling. The sheer joy, if you can call it that, that pro-life advocates have reacted with. It’s not universal, but there seems to be no shortage of glee generated from the implied suffering of those who can no longer get the healthcare they need.  There is no shortage of despair to be found right now, but for me, that’s the deepest well of it. Right there in those who want those who disagree with them to suffer for that disagreement. It’s not all, but it’s enough. 

I’m absolutely not telling anyone how they should have felt about that ruling, how they should feel now, or what they should be doing about it. Even if that’s what I wanted to do, I’m not the person anyone should be listening to on these sorts of matters. But I know how I feel. And I can see how my friends are feeling. The sadness. The anger. The confusion. Watching folks who I know stand on the same side of this tear into each other over minor differences because we ended up in this place we never should have gotten to. However you feel, however you choose to fight this, wherever you point your efforts, please find the moments to be soft. With others. With those closest. With yourself. I don’t know the best way forward, but I’m certain it involves that. 

I love every last one of you.