After Everest

After the first six months of the year took me up an emotional Everest—

the death of my father,

navigating the nuclear fallout after my reality exploded,

and the nonstop, high-stakes school board pressure I was under—

July was kind.

Not soft.

Not still.

Long.

Long in a way that let me feel the passage of time

instead of being crushed beneath it.

Even with the recall chaos in the background,

July didn’t hold a candle to what I’d already endured.

Not the grief.

Not the devastation.

Not the internal emotional bleeding

compounded by stress

and Olympic-level figure-it-the-fuck-out gymnastics.

It didn’t demand my destruction.

It didn’t steal my breath.

It simply let me be.

And that was exactly what I needed it to be.