MOAR AWFULNESS
My brother was assaulted outside his girlfriend’s apartment a couple days ago. Apparently he came upon a burglary in progress and the five perpetrators beat him pretty badly. They stomped on his hand – he’s a beautiful piano player, and his day job is as a biology researcher (he has a PhD), working on the research that leads to cures for childhood cancers. His hands are important, and they broke one. I’m sorta fixated on that particular detail, even though his sweet head took as many blows.
I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of any of this, so I can’t be a witness, so I feel ok writing that much, but probably nothing more. I am a litigator, after all – I know how writing things down can lock you in and a year from now you can read something that no longer reflects reality, but gets trotted out as an exhibit at a trial. They stole his phone so we have been communicating with his lovely girlfriend, who had to witness this and feels traumatized. My bro is not in any sort of life-threatening danger, so we aren’t at Defcon Level Panic over here, just sort of . . . slowly folding into this experience and figuring out what it means. Since I’m doing the same with the Capitol insurrection, and the kids back on virtual learning, and my bestie’s father dying a horrible, miserable death of COVID-19 just a couple days ago . . . I don’t know, I’m sort of in a fugue state? I guess? I definitely feel not right – sort of drifty, and I’ve almost blacked out once or twice. I approached another panic attack yesterday and my heartrate wasn’t even up. Stress is a bitch, even when you’re safe in your house. I have lots of good stress reduction strategies, but deep breathing and lots of water are only gonna take you so far. We have to have true STABILITY at some point, and stop this parade of unprecedented stressors.
The Prof took Craiggy boy to work with him yesterday, so I just had Liam all day, and that made the day easier (that is, until I got the text about my brother). Today, I have Craiggy boy, while the Prof takes Jack to the orthodontist. Just trading back and forth, juggling too much, but making it work. I do have some doc reviews right now, so I was able to bill a doc review until about 10pm last night, catching up on some hours and able to watch a little mindless tv at the same time (doc review, for the non-lawyers among my readers, is fairly easy. You have tens of thousands of historical emails in a doc review system and you just click Next, Next, Next, skimming them to see if they’re relevant to the litigation or not, and since most of them are “what time’s lunch” and “Here’s your monthly newsletter, with June’s HOT HOT deals!” it is one of the less mentally challenging billable tasks).
Things’ll get better. This won’t last. These are my mantras, as I put one foot in front of the other.