Tennessee, How I loathe Thee

Today has been one mess after another and has made me wish that I could truly breathe fire because I know exactly where my raging flames would be directed. Hello, Tennessee. It is such a huge pain in the ass when your spouse dies in a different state. I mean, clearly, it’s terrible and tragic on its own but dealing with a different state that gives no shits has been excruciating. I have not even received a pending death certificate yet to start moving things in the direction they need to be in order to you know…. sell a car, close bank accounts, start the process to begin receiving some sort of income while we figure out what the hell we are going to do from here, and so many other extremely important tasks. My husband was the sole financial provider. I have been a stay-at-home mom since our first was born. And now my youngest fears that he will have to find an entirely new family if I go to work because that’s where he lost his dad. I have spoken to numerous people at the TN Department of Vital Records that told me repeatedly that the certificates were in the mail. Repeatedly. I’ve been waiting on mail and checking every damn day, incredibly confused as to why they decided to deliver my mail with a horse and buggy. I’ve sent several thank you notes within the same time frame to states much further away and they have all received them. And then today I call again and nope—they were never sent.

I thanked the lady today for being honest with me and wasn’t sure why five other women straight up lied to me as a way to… end the conversation, I presume? So, I need to now call this person. Call them. Now call this person. Call them. And now call this person. Call them. Leave a message. Every single person I speak to contradicts what the last person said. And apparently, Vital Records isn’t even who I should be talking to yet. Of course, the person at the end of this infuriating train is out of the office until next week. Of course. But at the end of this phone call mess, I will be issued a certificate good enough to get all the things processed that needed to be processed, yesterday. And I just don’t understand why they are making me call so many people when they all know this is something pretty damn important and they should just send it. Now.

And the fact the Tennessee makes you go through all these additional requests just infuriates me even more when I think of my state, North Carolina, who just passed a constitutional amendment regarding Crime and Assault Victims’ Rights. Yeah, sure when you see that title you want to vote for it because, of course, victims should be protected. But in North Carolina, victims already have all of those rights and all this did was now make the victim go through paperwork after a trauma to be able to actually be notified of things that would have just happened without paperwork previously. So, while it was disguised as something positive, it really was just another way to make a big stack of paperwork and frustrate the shit out of the person surviving the trauma. That’s it. More paperwork.

After trauma your mind is a jumbled mess. I am so scatterbrained right now and have no idea where anything is. I have no idea what’s happening tomorrow or an hour from now, so I’m unable to answer questions the way I did before experiencing this. Had I not been undergoing my own personal trauma in October, I would have advocated against this amendment and educated people on what it actually means. Because, let’s face it—the average voter isn’t reading the fine print. They see the headline on the ballot and it’s written in a way that makes you want to say, “Hell yes!” It’s all just such bullshit. And if one more person tells me to call one more person today, I am going to scream.

I do not hate our government structures and I understand there’s a system everything goes through first. I do hate bullshit policies that do nothing but extend the process of something fairly quick and simple to something drawn out and complicated.

What else would have saved me from having to wait on all these people who have no care about the piece of paper on their desk—because that’s all this is to them. It’s not their husband. Not their dad. Not their friend. Not their anyone? A will. A will would have helped me in this scenario, but guess what? We never even came close to writing one. We talked about death more often than most, but didn’t really ever think we’d be dealing with it so soon. We absolutely believed we had more time. Our kids are only five and six.

So, my point after all of this is to say two things: 1. Read the fine print on the amendments you are voting for or against. 2. After you say, “I do,” and before you go on your honeymoon, write your will and make it official. And here’s a bonus one: 3. I fucking hate Tennessee.