Almost a Year Ago…

Almost a year ago my family and I left home in Connecticut to quarantine in California.

It was a polarizing choice; one that we struggled to make. Some disagreed. Others applauded it. But ultimately it was a legal one, and we travelled in the safest way possible; for the sake of our family.

It didn’t take long before a NYT reporter, and former classmate of mine, blasted me and my choices all over her page.

For weeks there were attacks almost daily- reposts of pictures of me and my babies. Tagging of my partners, shaming them for working with me. Outing my choices. Calling me dangerous and reckless and a host of other things. All on her very public platform.

It resulted in her followers trolling my Instagram- hurling insults about me and my children; and, at the worst of it, threats against our safety.

I don’t wish anyone to feel the way I did in those times.

It added an extra layer of darkness amidst the already impending feeling of 2020 doom.

But even though I was battling postpartum depression, even though I struggled with anxiety on top of it all; I was {and am} able to ignore that bullshit to some degree.

Thankfully.

And while I don’t want to see anyone feel that way, I hope that the recent coverage she’s enduring right now has her second guessing the way she uses her very own platform- the one she used to incite hate and vitriol towards me- a mom blogger, with a very meager following, for just trying to survive at the beginning of a global pandemic.

I hope she finds peace.

That she has a change of heart.

But mostly I hope that this whole culture of cancelling comes to an end. Because as I said a year ago when she so outwardly tried to cancel me; when she so clearly tried to break me down: Cyber bullying is real. Yes, for adults, too. It causes pain and sadness. It hurts people.

Its mean at best. And dangerous at worst.

And we need to do better.