...my body is on fire
So…I’m back. God help me find the discipline to do this regularly, as directed by my therapist (Go figure!) in an effort to find the joy and the hope. Apparently, me bottling things up, feeling angry, helpless and hopeless, is not good for me.
I feel like I should drop a quick list of shit that infuriates me so we can get on with it.
- Liars
- Traitors (to the nation, I’ve gotten used to the ones in regular life)
- Trump followers
- Civically ignorant citizens
- SCOTUS
- Death of Roe v Wade
- The lack of Christ’s teachings in so many Christian congregations
- QAnon (or whatever bullshit that is)
- The 2025 Project
- Liars
- Bebe N.
- Hamas
- Diet culture
- Brain trauma
- Memories
- Ex wives
- Ex husbands
- Cancer
- Institutional care for the Elderly
- Liars
I started with the big topics, not realizing that the ones closer to home would bring the tears and prevent me from seeing the screen. I left off dead mothers and fathers, because, you know, fuck.
I know that I GET to focus on that which is immediately in front of me, that is within my range of influence. I know that spending a lot of time (or any) on the things I cannot change will only increase the feelings of helplessness – but I feel like if I don’t say them out loud, if I don’t pay attention to them, if I let go of my heartbreak, disillusionment and anger, the people around me, who don’t seem to share my concerns, will forget that there are powerful (mostly old white men) people ready and willing to destroy this democracy because they believe it will benefit them – or they are afraid they will get caught doing the things they have, in fact, been doing that flies in the face of the oaths they took and the jobs they accepted (Right Clarence?)!
I remember, and I’ve probably said this many times, I remember when my dad told me that life wasn’t fair. I was 11 or 12 and something had not worked out as I thought it should and all I could say was (my familiar battle cry), “It’s not fair!”. Dad said, “Sissy, life isn’t fair.” – OMG you would have thought he shot our dog. (Oddly enough, not something that people did when I was growing up, unless they were rabid.) I was so angry. Angry and angry at him. At that time, I believed parents were meant to fix that shit so that we, the children, had a better chance at life. “Level the fucking playing field, we’re just getting started!! They couldn’t then just as I can’t now. In fact, now I know just how much they were dealing with – working through, and carrying, on our behalf. How the economy affected our opportunities for vacations, furniture and clothing.
When I close my eyes in the middle of a desperate attempt to let the things I cannot change go – I see myself standing in the middle of a giant intersection in any city USA, screaming, “STOP IT – IT’S NOT FAIR!!” only to have the drivers lay on their horns and scream at me to get out of the way.
So here I am, we are, left to find the courage to change the things we can. Join me?
