To say that the Dobbs decision has gutted me would be a massive understatement.
To be frank, it doesn't directly apply to me. I'm past age of pregnancy and even if I were to get pregnant I have the means to travel to friends in the West Coast or elsewhere to get what I need. I have privilege on so many levels. And I haven't ever had an abortion. I've taken friends to get abortions, helped facilitate overwhelmed people do what they wanted and needed to do, but I've never faced this decision, been in this situation.
That doesn't really matter though because the stripping of bodily autonomy - and the stripping of basic privacy and due process rights coming our way - should devastate us all. We should be outraged.
But more than that, we should start taking action. And I don't mean those smug memes about "camping trips" - I mean finding organizations helping the most vulnerable in our society and sending them money. Showing up if they ask. I have a lot of non-white and LGBTQAI* friends, but I'm not someone who, for example, would be approached by a young Black trans man in desperate straits needing a ride to Illinois, the nearest place to get an abortion. So I need to provide support to those who would be. I don't need to go stock up on Plan B - I need to click the donation button on groups who distribute that to those in need.
I also need to help people whose lives will be gutted with the overturning of Obergefell. Did you know that the people most likely to be in same-sex relationships and have children in Louisiana are actually in rural areas?
And I do not need to create these opportunities - they already exist. We must take collective action, not make attempts at individual attention-seeking heroism. Though of course there will be heroes.
And I need to stop being small, shrinking inward for self-protection. I'm grateful that as soon as Dobbs was released, at work we gathered. Informally of course, but we turned to each other for support, for rage. And two coworkers noted that this toxic job has made them retreat from the world because they are beaten down from it, and that is also happening to me though that started from hurricane or even house repairs before that. Pandemic. All of it.
So I need to buck up and get my house in order and be positioned to help as needed. Action over words. The part of me that put everything on hold last summer to transport immigrants out of detention centers, who spent the post-hurricane hell days showing up for mutual aid - that person should be rested up and ready to rumble.
But I do need to get my guest bedroom back in order so I can house people as that need arises. Or get a roommate to help with dog care so I'm free to be away from home more.
My workplace is toxic AF and that needs to stop bothering me. So what. It's just how I get my health insurance and basic needs met. There are much more important things I need to be worrying about.
On the home renovation front, painting is underway. Prep is mostly done, they took off the weekend, and now we see what days don't rain so they can continue work. The main worker is cute AF and I'm glad he took off the weekend because he was toiling in an inferno last week.
And on the hurricane prep front, I'm doing ok. I've got lanterns and fans and batteries and solar generator and enough food and water to last probably weeks. I want to get a mosquito screen tent to sleep outside in my hammock and some other things like that, but I feel less frantic about that now as I keep dropping cash to prep. My big concern is that a hurricane will not be standalone like Ida was, but we will be battered repeatedly. That I may not be able to withstand. But I do want to stay as much as I can - to remediate damages to my home like last year and also to help people who couldn't evacuate. I need to be sure that I'm not taking resources from others but am only helping provide more.
Time to stop wallowing. Time to step up.
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