Tired.

I don’t know why this notice is any different. They’re all exactly the same.

.הורים יקרים

The joke is that those are the two scariest words in the Hebrew language right now.

Dear parents.

I’m tired. It’s the kind of tired that you feel in your chest, not your head or behind your eyes. It’s in your chest, it’s heavy as fuck, and it’s got a direct line to your tear ducts, but they are also so tired you can’t even cry. You just continue staring into space, which is a bit blurry, kind of like a Vignette filter on a recent Instagram post showing how so not funny it is anymore to work along side with your kids at the kitchen table.

I can’t even bring myself to get up and go pick up my daughter for her third? fourth? quarantine notice in a month. In a month? Week? I don’t know what the date is even, to the point I made a plan at a work meeting yesterday under the assumption that February is still a month away.

It’s a tired that ’emotional exhaustion’ no longer covers anymore.

It’s a tired we all know by now, I’m not saying anything new.


Picking her up is a cold, wet ordeal because the stormy weather doesn’t get quarantined. A kid is whimpering on the way into the classroom.

מה קרה? צריך עזרה?״”

“.לא מוצא את המעיל שלי”

I don’t know what to tell you, it’s never not emo watching these kids be normal in this normal world where everything happening is normal because this is the real time world they live in.

Yes, kids are resilient. Yes, yours and mine may be thriving. But so many won’t. Look at life inequality before any of this, look at the human experience before any this. They are resilient because they don’t know what’s coming.

My daughter is equally resilient. I tap her on the shoulder in the dark room where the movie plays off the wall, and she turns to follow me out the door.

“Why’d you get me early?”

“You’re in bidud…” I say with an apologetic ‘oh honey’ mom face.

“Oh, right,” she says as she starts talking about normal things, in a normal way, like what she won’t be able to do tomorrow and where she’ll sleep tonight.


It’s not just the kids. It’s every time I finally have a breakthrough at work or in a personal project and I have to drop it to pick someone up for a fresh quarantine notice, or deal with my kids at home because childcare is understaffed or wait on a 2-hour line to get a formality test.

It’s things constantly shutting down. Places. People. Conversations.

It’s the relentless debating, complaining, putting down, judging everywhere I turn. It’s watching society become gross, become split, become unattractive. It’s realizing you have certain people in your life you’ll never look at the same way again now that you’ve discovered how different your values are.

That’s it. Nothing new. Just normal.


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