Persistence

This video of La and her papa is nearly killing me today:

(his Indian name was "Takes Many Breaks." It was appropriate to capture this)

I am so angry at him. I am so angry that he made the choices he made and left me and La to fend for ourselves. She is trying to write a talk for TEDYouth where she has been invited to speak, and all we can both think about is his overwhelming absence and how very hard it is to be passionate about anything. She is trying to recapture the excitement she felt when she started the house, but today it's just a three-ton reminder of everything we have lost. On days like this, I want to set it on fire and leave town.

We miss him so much. She wants her papa so bad but doesn't want to hurt my feelings.

We are getting ready to go to NOLA and deliver a speech that could open up some serious doors for La, and all we both want to do is go to sleep. Life is like swimming through pudding with razors in it, or getting a million tiny papercuts that you don't really notice (or are able to ignore) until you accidentally get some hand sanitizer in them. This is just every day reality for us, a reality that doesn't even address the basic shitty realities of overwhelming needs for the house (new 'fridge, dryer, roof, gutters) and family (another death on Dane's side, great g'ma moving again).

When she finishes this speech and delivers it, regardless of what happens, I am going to be crying like a moron in the front row of the theater, heartbroken, proud, sad and just amazed at my child. If you want to know what persistence means, look to her. Her father, that asshole, would be so proud.