I’ve been traveling a lot for work lately. I remember when I first started out at this job, I actually enjoyed the breaks I’d get from the walking on eggshells at home. Every trip would be an escape. Temporary relief from inevitably fucking something up, whether I actually fucked something up or not.

Now, though, it doesn’t have that same appeal. There is no tension at home. Home is a wonderful and safe place and I enjoy being there more now than I ever have. Traveling for work is simply taking me out of a place I want to be. It’s not an escape, I don’t have anything I need to escape. It’s a huge downer, to be completely honest, and I’ve been traveling pretty extensively. I’m really over it. I don’t think I’m going to be doing a ton more, but I think what I’ve done already is more than enough.

I don’t know. I don’t think I’m going to keep up this sort of travel. Hopefully not, anyways.

I’m also finding it necessary to just pull away from really toxic people. It seems like the overturning of Roe v. Wade has exposed a lot of awful people for being really awful. I’ve been alive long enough to realize that I can’t convince these people to not be shitty. They’re stuck in their beliefs, because they have no requirement for science or fact. They’re perfectly content to just sit on belief alone. It’s essentially a cult. I’m not a cult deprogrammer, and I’ll be honest- I don’t think it’s possible to deprogram someone that’s been in a cult. They’ll either continue repeating the cult mantra, or they’ll realize of their own volition that the cult dogma is completely untrue. There is no “deprogramming”. Just waking up from the nightmare.

It terrifies me, what the future holds. The world my children will be left. It won’t be pleasant. It’s already getting so much worse. I just don’t know what to do about it. I know that something, anything, is better than doing nothing. Man. I just don’t know. How has education failed this country so hard?