Last week I had a parenting win that didn’t look flashy from the outside.

My non-binary 12-year-old wanted to do something. Logically, it all checked out. They were spending time with friends they’ve known for a while. The house wasn’t new. There hadn’t been issues before. And yet.

I had a bad feeling.

We are living inside sustained threat.

Not a feeling. Not an attitude.
A material reality that lands in the body.

Bodies are tracking danger — to families, to communities, to the right to exist without being policed, erased, or punished. For many women and queer folks, there is no separation between the political moment and the nervous system. The body is already in it.

So when voices tighten, when expression becomes harder to access, when silence feels safer than visibility — nothing has gone wrong.

That is the body being strategic.

But this strategy has a cost.

If you’re anything like me, you can’t help it.

You’re driving alone. Or cooking in the kitchen. Or lying on the floor at the end of a long day. A song comes on, and without thinking, you’re in it. Something about it speaks to you in ways nothing else can. You start to sing along—maybe quietly, maybe badly, maybe just a hum.

And suddenly, something shifts.

I blew up a family gathering last month.

It started small — someone did something that felt wrong, unfair, a quiet injustice. I tried to let it go. I told myself, it’s not worth disrupting everyone else’s day. I wanted to stay calm, to keep the peace, to let it slide.

But I couldn’t…