**Journal Entry – September 30th, 2010**
Posted on Tue May 13th, 2025 @ 8:49am by Leader Serena Reynolds M.D.
443 words; about a 2 minute read
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**Journal Entry – September 30th, 2010**
*Location: Homestead Kitchen, Late Evening*
*Writer: Serena Reynolds, M.D.*
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The sun has set, and the quiet is settling into the walls — or as quiet as it ever gets with this many people under one roof. The fire in the hearth is down to glowing coals. Dinner’s been cleaned up. Most of us are asleep, and the rest are pretending to be. I should be too. But sleep feels like a fragile thing lately. Like if I let myself slip too deep, I might miss something vital.
We had our first full council meeting today around the kitchen table. Not mine. Not Timothy’s. This house belonged to Jack, Carmen, and Myles’ family — their grandparents, if I remember right. A real farmhouse, built to be lived in, loved in. Now it’s a different kind of home. A borrowed sanctuary. And I carry that weight with me every time I call a meeting or assign chores under its roof.
Timothy laid out the beginnings of a defensive plan — double wall, compacted dirt core, steel reinforcement. It’s ambitious, but necessary. Jackson backed it, though he reminded us that winter is coming fast, and permanent shelters won’t build themselves before the ground freezes. Still, we agreed: the wall comes first. A house won’t help us if we can’t keep what’s inside it safe.
There were other moments. Lighter ones. Vienna offering to teach archery. Roman teasing her with that grin of his. TJ and Kelly stepping up to scout with Tim. Even the kids — Carmen, Chloe, Myles — doing chores like they’ve lived here all their lives. And maybe, in a way, they have. Not just this place, but this way of surviving.
PJ slept through most of it. Warm on my back, soft breath against my shoulder. Every time I look at him, I wonder what world we’re building for him. I wonder what kind of mother I’ll be in it. What kind of leader I already am.
We ended the meeting with clear priorities: feed the animals, check the garden, build the wall, and prepare ourselves for whatever the world throws next. Everyone has a job now. Everyone has a purpose.
And tonight, after dinner, after the firewood and scrap buckets and one too many questions about when lunch would be ready, I sat down here again — not as a doctor, not as a survivor. Just a woman trying to keep everyone breathing one more day.
This house may not be ours. But for now, it’s home.
And I’ll do whatever it takes to protect it.
— Serena
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