She looks out the small holes of the wooden blinds on the windows. The sun shines right at the house in the late spring and summer so they have to close the blinds at a certain time in the evening so it doesn’t blind them. It’s red from the smoke due to the horrible wildfires in Canada. She and her husband have been wanting to go outside but the air quality has been bad for people with asthma to be out for a prolonged period of time. It’s been very difficult for The Trapped Butterfly since they are still not able to live how they used to due to Covid. Smaller and smaller groups seem to be trying to avoid getting it or being reinfected with Covid despite the research showing that it is affecting health in pretty nasty ways.
As she looks at the red sun, she tries to see it as a sign that everything is going to work out with publishing her children’s book…Except the reality is that the thought of publishing it now that it’s finally done is scaring the living shit out of her.
Technically, The Trapped Butterfly is already a published author and has been called horrible names by Christian pro-spankers. She dealt with the trauma of the book not taking off and then finding out that the publisher was bad. They went to jail for embezzling money.
She is living through a terrifying time in her life…Well, it feels like it hasn’t really let up since her beloved mother in law went to Heaven. But this current situation with a virus that seems to be getting less severe and less acutely deadly than it was as well as all the division in the country with the narcissistic right wing cult of hatred, it feels terrifying to release a new book. She is fucking desperate to be able to interact with children in person!! She truly believes that people will come to her book events! But trying to explain her situation with Covid to people is scary because she has been laughed at as well as the typical bullshit the Covid deniers continue to spread when they see anything about Covid. Even her marketing agent was weird, unless she misunderstood, about having people wear masks for interviews and events.
She also had an unexpected wave of grief after speaking to her marketing agent. The sudden grief was about her biological family not being there for the first time in her life to cheer her on…Not that they did it for the right reasons but still…
Then she had a dream about her narcissistic mother that her mother had changed the book with other family members. Yet, The Trapped Butterfly was kind of happy to see her mother. She felt sad when they departed in the dream and she had to decide whether to have her mother back in her life in some way or not.
Of course, knowing how sick her mother truly is, there is very little chance that she will ever be able to have her mother back in her life. Her mother is incapable of truly forgiving. She only looks out for herself.
The Trapped Butterfly just feels more trapped again as well as overwhelmed. She knows that she will push through. The book will be published. And she will find ways to be able to safely do stuff without hurting/killing her husband or herself. But the uncertainty is killing her.
On top of all this, it’s also the worst time of year for her and her husband. They lost their beloved kitty almost 6 years ago so they still struggle with heavy grief and PTSD from the loss. Their sweet calico kitty is about to be 17 years old. The kitties were adopted and brought home together. She is so grateful for the calico continuing to do well with her kidney disease unlike her brother, but The Trapped Butterfly is fighting thoughts about the horrible loss of her someday… May they have a few more years with this sweet little kitty. May the quality of life for her kitty remain high too.
In the end, she has to trust that everything will work out how it is supposed to go. It will be fine…Yet, is this the right time for everything?
The Trapped Butterfly 