dread or something like it.

I am going away this week to gather with a group of women I have been getting together with every year since 2010. I woke up this morning with an intense sense of dread deep within my body because I am worried about what might happen with Randall while I am gone.

We managed his hearing last week and then found out that they found a semi-independent apartment for him that is over 80 minutes away from us. 80 minutes on a good day with no weather or traffic issues for a kid who is unstable and often suicidal. I am astonished at the lack of planning or listening on the part of the agency. They have known since October that this was going to happen and they now act like it is a surprise that they need to figure out housing for him. He moves there on Wednesday, the day before I leave and I day that is already full of appointments and so I can not even take him there and help him settle in.

It is so frustrating. How can one kid fall through so many cracks so many times.

It breaks my heart that he is so unstable and that no one can seem to get their crap together and provide him with the support that he desperately needs.

But I am still going away. I need this break. I need to see these women. I need to decompress from these last few months because they have been so very hard.

I look back at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 and I am surprised I am still here. I am surprised that I got through that and can tell the story because there were so many days when I thought was just not going to be the case.

A trip, another hearing, some papers for school, one step at a time and hopefully with time the dread will decrease and some version of normal will emerge.