{The following is a typed version of my diary entries from June 24th, 2022; the day that Roe v. Wade was overturned.}

Friday, June 24th:

6:01am

Hello hello!

It’s been a long time since I’ve written to you! We have so much catching up to do.

First things first: I’m sorry for being away for so long. I can’t believe I haven’t written in you since Seattle, but life has gotten a little crazy. The second I came back, I was back to the pre-pandemic Kate mode, of taking on way too much, crossing my fingers and hoping it worked.

Spoiler alert: it did not. At least, not sustainably.

I got really sick for the first time since that horrible week before the shutdown, and I had to stay off the blog for two weeks. I have a new piece coming out on Sunday, though, which I’m super excited about! It’s about my relationship with femininity and how I’ve jumped through hoops my whole life to become comfortable and secure in it. Well, not just secure, but, proud really.

Somewhere in between all of that, I HAD MY FIRST PROFESSIONAL ACTING GIG!!!

Was it “just background work”? Yeah, absolutely. But it was a start and the kick-in-the-ass reminder that acting is still something attainable for me. That I’m not too fat or too ugly or not good enough or all of those things. I don’t need to be gorgeous to get in front of a camera. Hell, I could probably write films good enough to get myself in front of the camera. And I’ll probably have to.

I just realized how self-important it sounds to say that I think I could write theatre-worthy movies.

No. Actually, no.

I’m so tired of apologizing for saying what I mean.

I’m a good writer. Hell, I’m a great writer. I always have been.

A few more years of more writing and more effort, and I could be one of the greats.

Okay, that last bit was a little too far lol. But you get the point.

Anyways.

Actually, wait I don’t remember what I was saying.

Oh! But yes I got my first acting gig and that’s only the first of many more.

At 9:15 tomorrow I have to sign up for Central Casting, a thing I heard about from a few of the other background people. They really helped me out. I think we have the potential of being good friends 🙂

Anyway, I should get moving. I haven’t woken up this early in forever and I want to take advantage of it. See you at 12!

To Do List:

–Wash All Clothes

–Wash bedsheets

–Clean out closet

–Move old desk into closet

-Organize new desk

-Take out trash and old clothes

–drink one full water bottle

8:05 am

I feel like I can’t breathe without every bone in my body and every nerve under my skin vibrating and sending warning signals every half a second.

I just went on social media for the first time today while eating breakfast, and the first thing I saw was big white letters against the black screen of an Instagram grid post from the LA Times that read:

“Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, paving the way for state abortion bans.”

Underneath it was an infographic on ways people in trigger states could still access safe abortions. Further down was a video of women celebrating on the steps of the supreme court. Another scroll was a message from Michelle Obama, mad and scared, and another scroll and another scroll and another scroll.

I could feel my heart crack in two. I could feel my soul slither down and around my spine, my stomach, my lungs. It sits at the bottom of my lungs still, preventing me from taking a breath deep enough to calm down.

The world doesn’t feel like it’s spinning. It doesn’t feel upside down like I thought it would when this happened.

I found out about my loss of human status on a place where I post pictures of myself in cute dresses and pretty sunsets.

So instead of feeling like the world is spinning, I feel more like my place in it is permanent and still. Not as the living, breathing lifeform that I was five seconds ago.

But as a stone-still statue that they’ve tapped their gavels like wands to turn me into.

12:13 pm

I was supposed to have finished my to-do list by now. But I’ve been scrolling and typing and researching for the past four hours.

In another six, I have to be at work. I have to be at *place of work* where hundreds of girls, women, and other people who are now in danger will be, with the same painful smile plastered on their faces, pretending that everything is fine for at least today.

I want to do more. People keep saying I should be. But I feel hopeless and invaluable.

“Vote.” I couldn’t. I turned 18 in October, and before then nobody listened to me anyway.

“Protest.” I’m scared to. I want to. I will. But I have to work up the courage.

Both things seem to not be working anyways. Trump still got his people into the court.

I feel pessimistic, which is incredibly unusual for me and I hate it. I hate that they have the power to make me feel entirely unlike myself. To make me inhuman by being inhumane.

I want to spend today in bed, under the covers, watching La La Land, and trying to get myself to cry.

Because I haven’t yet, and that worries me.

I cried when Biden won. That felt like a quick gulp of breath in a political sea full of drowning people.

I cried when gay marriage was federally recognized in 2015.

But for some reason, I can’t cry about this.

Selfishly, I’m so grateful that I live in California. That we have the governor that we do, despite my occasional qualms with his decisions.

I fear traveling out of state. I fear for the people that live in those states that have automatically banned abortion within them.

I’m not speechless. Obviously. I just don’t know what to say without screaming it from the top of my lungs.

Saturday, June 25th:

1:43am

I talked a lot more about it at work than I thought it would.

A lot of my female coworkers were worried too. Sick and distraught, with stapled smiles and dead eyes.

We’re not supposed to talk about it in front of guests. So we whispered.

We couldn’t bear to act like it wasn’t the only thing on our minds.

I only talked to the men if it was the one I trusted. Or if they inserted themselves.

Eddie talked to me about it. He had this look of worry in his eyes. Concern. Fear.

Not of me.

For me.

He has a sister. It’s not why he’s pro-choice I don’t think, but it’s probably part of it.

I wonder what she thinks about it. What’s she said, what she’s done.

I wonder a lot about the women in the lives of the men I meet. Their girlfriends and wives, sisters and friends and cousins and parents/parental figures.

If they’ve shaped and built their view on women as humans instead of objects.

Because I’ve come to learn that we are just objects to most of them. We’re things for sex, we’re things for flirt, for companionship, and their own personal growth. We’re things that come and go as they please until they find one that they see as the best thing.

And then we’re theirs.

I’m scared of men. I don’t trust them and I don’t like them, but I’m attracted to them and that makes things complicated.

Because how am I supposed to know if they see me as a person or a thing?

I don’t think even they can tell the difference.

I cried at the gym. I went before work and I was five minutes late because of it.

NBC News was on the tv right in front of my treadmill, so I couldn’t really help but watch. They were showing clips of all sorts of things, all centered around the new major American political fuck-up of the week.

One of the clips was of a woman being gently escorted to the entrance of a clinic by two other women in vests. The back of the vests said “Volunteer Clinic Escorts”. The vests were a calm blue. The woman was covering her face from the view of the cameras and crying. The other two women placed a soft and guiding hand each on the top of her back and her shoulders, and stayed with her all the way through.

My cheeks were wet before I knew I was crying.

I wiped my face real quick and upped my walk to a run, and then a sprint when the run didn’t feel good enough.

I ran until I couldn’t breathe, and then I went to the bathroom and cried.

I did the rest of my workout like it was normal. I took a shower that was longer than the ones I normally take at the gym because I zoned out mid-way through. And I left late for work.

I feel like my entire teenagedom and adulthood have been overcrowded with historical moments.

I’m so sick and tired of them.

But I’m a woman. And I’m brown.

I am never going to know peace.