when life aspirates lemonade…

here we are. everything is okay.

July 15, 2024, 5:37pm Log

Hello again, Jackson. (these vibes.)

I don’t know why I didn’t see this coming. This hesitancy towards being back. This uncomfortable familiarity that tastes weird. It tastes different than it used to. The 13 years since living in Jackson have changed both of us so much—me and the town.

We expected the movers to be here with our stuff by July 6th (mostly because that’s when they told us to expect it), but it is now July 16th and our stuff isn’t here. It’s so depressing—to start a new life in camp chairs, with piles of shoes and clothes and toys strung about. Last week, I sat in our bare living room to journal a bit. The only pen I could find was a lavender/pink-ish Le Pen. I wrote:

“We’re in our new home. I’m depressed. I can feel it coming on strong. It’s such a familiar feeling—especially being in Jackson, but I feel more equipped to be depressed now. I know what alcohol does to me now. I know what antidepressants do for me now. I have so much baggage from this place and throughout this place. It was easy to move to new places and start over—yes, sad to not know anyone, but how beautiful to not have an ex-lover in town, to have no friendships that faded uncomfortably away, no places that already hold disappointments and failures in their walls. I didn’t realized these feelings would be here. I didn’t realize that moving back meant directly facing a Rachel of yore and sizing her up—measuring her progress and depreciation with a critical eye.”

A ray of fucking sunshine—I know.

Marcelline (my four-year-old) interrupted my dark musings on a return (thank god) and asked me to use my pen and write in my journal. This is how these writing sessions go these days:

1. Marcie asks me “Momma, how you write _________?” (insert long word or [more likely] a phrase.)
   

2. I write the word or phrase as clearly as possible on a piece of paper.
   

3. Marcie says, “Okay.” and proceeds to write or draw what looks like the name of Grimes’ children.

During this writing session, she first asked me, “Momma, how you write ‘respect’?” Then, “Momma, how you write ‘friendship’?”

She must’ve seen me ruminating again on the movers being MIA or reckoning with a new bout of depression (or also kids are just beautifully intuitive), because next Marcie asked, “Momma, how you write, ‘everything is okay’?”

I wrote down the phrase. She drew/wrote. I don’t even know where her iteration of the phrase ended up, but I kept the one she made me write. I taped it to the fridge and since we have nothing else up on any walls, it became our sole piece of decor.

When you’re depressed, things don’t feel okay… even if they’re actually fantastic. Jackson has been nothing but incredible to me. I love my job. I love being able to have dinner with dearest friends while Marcie bombs around the neighborhood with a gang of little friends. I love seeing family often and letting Marcie spend the night at her grandma’s while Evan and I have a date night. I love running into people I know and haven’t seen in forever in every shop—so many hugs. I love hugs! I love swimming in the most beautiful rivers, ponds, and lakes with frie-

July 15, 2024, 8:01pm Log

It was horrible, y’all. Evan picked Marcie up from school and took her to our friends’ house to potentially pick up a bike. Evan and our friend (a doctor, thank god) moved some stuff around whilst Marcie played with their five-year-old daughter. The daughter friend wanted to make some “lemonade” and Marcie fucking LOVES lemonade, so the two basically dove head first into a jug of this stuff…

Marcelline is allergic to milk. This stuff was milk on steroids… I think that’s literally how they market it. And while we’ve dealt with Marcie accidentally eating something with milk or egg or peanuts or cashews (her main allergies) in it many times, we had never dealt with something like this before. The kiddos used a frother to try and mix the powder with water, which sent a plume of protein powder in the air. We think Marcie aspirated milk powder, which is one of the few medical fresh hells we haven’t yet dealt with with our child.

When Evan brought her home, I held Marcie in the bathroom, encouraging her to throw up. (this is usually the solution.) But Marcie was miserable. She was crying, she was wheezing, she didn’t want to watch Bluey, she didn’t even want her Roarys—something was wrong. Evan took her blood oxygen level and it was low. We called our doctor friend. He told us to give her the Epi-Pen. I held Marcie tight as Evan administered the shot to her thigh. It was horrible.

She got better, but couldn’t stop wheezing. We went to the ER.

unfortunately, a familiar selfie.

They gave Marcie treatments. She did finally throw up. They listened to her lungs a lot and told us they wanted to monitor her for at least two hours. They gave her a steroid treatment that she had to breathe in. She told us it was, “like a flute!” and kept humming into it like a kazoo.

Marcelline was incredible. She told nurses and doctors, “I have some germs in my body making me sick, but that’s just part of life!” And I wanted to cry out of love and out of how damn proud I am of this human who rolls with punches and is still such a bright life.

When we got cleared to let her eat something, our friend Anna brought us McDonald’s. (don’t at me… McDonald’s is consistent and a Happy Meal doesn’t have any of Marcie’s allergies and also I needed to eat some feelings.) Marcie watched her tablet with a couple new stuffies and ate a Happy Meal while the team kept monitoring. By the end of the night, Marcie was honestly living her best life…

It’s like that old saying… When life has you aspirate lemonade powder… make… your parents give you all your favorite things. (that’s how the saying goes, right?)

We got home around 10:15pm. Marcelline slept in our bed and both Evan and she passed out in the middle of him reading her one of our favorite books: Here We Are.

I kept looking at these two beautiful beings. My whole world. And I chuckled at the surrealness of it all. “Here we are,” I told myself. I touched Marcie’s cheek and said, “Here we are.” I held Evan’s hand as he slept and said, “Here we are.”

Then I went to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of wine. (depression game-plan, fuck off… I wanted to unwind.) I exhaled for the first time in a few hours and looked at the fridge and finally let myself cry for the first time that day. A message from Marcelline, herself. A message from the Universe. A message from myself.

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Quick Hits:

• Jam of the Week: The Linda Lindas – All In My Head.

  (my favorite Linda Lindas song to date. they just keep getting better and better! catch them open for *checks notes* Green Day on tour.)

• I Am Also Excited About This Track.

  (FJM is a forever crush of mine.)

• This Podcast Ep Sent Me Spinning.
  (who did it????)

• My First Piece For KHOL Is On This Podcast Ep.
  (my story is about the Jackson Boys of Race to Survive: New Zealand and starts at about 12 minutes in.)

• Hello I Want This Home.

  (so much whimsy!)

• This Little Thing From Target Is Bringing Me Lots Of Joy.
  (we don’t have much in our apartment, so it’s the little things. I love rolling the dials each morning as I start the espresso maker and turn on the radio to 89.1 KHOL.)

• Portugal. the Man Is Playing In Jackson Tonight!

  (I’m interviewing Eric Howk today and just love this article about him. I also love this song/video.)

• Ha! Nailed It.
  (this was perfect.)

• Absolutely Accurate.

  (can I get an Amen?)

Thank you for being here. Wherever you are. Wherever I am. I’m happy that we’re back to regularly scheduled programming. This is good. Here we are. Everything is okay.

xxo,
rachel.