Humidity, Dutch Blitz, and the Art of Staying Upright

Morning’s just getting started. The air’s already thick. A wet kind of heaviness that sits in the back of your throat before you even step outside. Florida heat doesn’t wait for noon anymore. Ninety-one degrees today. It’s barely eight.

Fuck that.

There’s a half-melted ice cube on the counter from a cup I forgot to drink last night. It sweated itself into a small, defeated puddle. I watched it while trying to summon the energy to make breakfast. I still haven’t. The kids are up. Hungry. Circling.

I tried to play Dutch Blitz with them, thinking maybe it would be fun. Something loud and fast and light. But the yelling started three rounds in—too many rules, too much adrenaline, not enough sleep. We dissolved into chaos, each of us more brittle than the cards we were slapping. At one point, I just sat back and watched them argue. Not even mad. Just… tired. The kind of tired that wraps around your bones like wet fabric.

Bean is having a sensory day. She flinched at the blender. Squeezed her eyes shut when the sunlight hit her face too fast through the window. She’s nonverbal, but I hear her clearly. Her whole body speaks. She curled into my lap after the Dutch Blitz disaster, needing my stillness. So I gave it to her. Even though my stillness costs me.

We live inside these small disruptions. Always adjusting. Always calculating which discomfort is manageable, and which one needs to be rescued from. Pitt Hopkins Syndrome doesn’t hand you a manual—it hands you a riddle. You answer it differently every day.

I’m writing because therapy isn’t covered. Not the kind that helps, anyway. Not the kind that sits in the quiet and helps you unfold things that have stayed too folded for too long. So I write instead. Into the void. Into the page. Into the still space between breakfast and meltdown. Self-therapy with a keyboard and a window view.

I just read a Penelope Trunk blog post about meds. She’s so weird. But she’s weird in a way that makes me feel less alone. Honest in that way where you’re not sure if she’s okay—but then again, who is? Not me. Not most of us. Definitely not anyone whose insurance plan makes them pick between a root canal and their mental health.

Living with trauma sucks. I don’t say that lightly. It just does. But what’s worse is pretending it doesn’t. So many people are carrying things around like they’re groceries, neatly packed and balanced, when really it’s all just a bag with a hole in the bottom.

I drop things. All the time. Emotional glassware. Memories I didn’t mean to unpack today. I forget appointments and overcook rice. I snap. I apologize. I try again. That’s the rhythm of trauma parenting. That’s the rhythm of me.

And still—here I am.

Still making tea. Still wiping counters. Still trying to play games that go sideways. Still helping Bean through a day that started too loud. Still trying to write myself steady.

So cheers to whoever is reading this. Truly. Wish me luck today. I hope the heat doesn’t win, and I hope the quiet stretches just long enough for me to catch my breath.

Here’s to the messy, sweaty, heartbreaking poetry of surviving Monday. Here’s to all of us just trying.