On Caring and Writing
Can I still do both?
NOTE: This was also published at my sister blog, Constant Commoner. I’m sorry if you’re a dual subscriber and are getting duplicates in your mailbox. I do this sometimes when the subject applies to both.
This election was devastating, I don’t have to tell you. It is almost more than I can bear. My brain can’t sort through what just happened, and I’m reliving the fear and dread I felt in November, 2016, when Trump was given the presidency, even though he lost the popular vote.
This is a hundred times worse. We know what Trump is capable of now. We know the levels of corruption he’ll employ to get what he thinks should be his as the most powerful person in America. He has the rich and powerful on his side and they are as corrupt as he is. Congress and the courts will help him without question. And his followers, those millions, aren’t going away.
I’m still in the kind of shock I’m in when someone I care about dies suddenly, without warning. In this case, it’s our entire way of life. I see the light that was America dimming and dying and I can’t stop it.
I don’t know what to feel yet. I won’t be doing a postmortem. I have no real idea why this happened. I now have to decide whether I have the heart or the will to keep on fighting. I don’t know. It feels like mourning now, and that saps all of my energy.
Yes, I’ve cried. I’ve wondered over and over again why and how this happened. I already miss my country’s old days. I long for some semblance of sanity, of comfort. This is personal. I know the days ahead will be hard enough without me spending my precious time futilely working to rail against the horrors that will come.
What will happen to young women now? What will happen to people of color, poor people, sick people, old people, children? Immigrants? How will we protect them when all systems of protection have been corrupted? I have no answers. None.
I’m wondering why, at age 87, I should even bother trying to solve the problems that will still be lingering long after I’m gone.
Can I leave it to the young? It’s their lives that will be most affected. I was that young once, and I accepted that challenge. I saw every threat to the people as a personal threat, whether or not I, as a young white woman, fit the profile. I cared. And part of that caring came about because I knew I’d most likely have a long future ahead in a country I loved enough to fight for.
I still love my country. I’m glad I was born here, I’m glad I’ve spent my long life here, I’m glad for the people in my life, for the life I’ve been given, for the comfort I feel at the moment. But the days ahead may now have to be someone else’s problem.
I'll still care. I’ll still be in 'protective mom' mode. But the activism might have to come from someone else. Can I go without begging in public, without trying to explain why it would be bad to give in to a prideful, lying monster who gets his jollies by insulting and threatening people who have done nothing to him? I don’t know. Everything is visceral. Nothing makes sense. I have no words of any kind, let alone of wisdom.
Right now I don't want to see him or hear him. I don't want any more pundits wasting my time giving advice, placing blame, or trying to come up with a logical explanation.
This feels like mourning, and I've done enough of that.
I don’t know where I’ll be as a writer days or even weeks from now. I honestly don’t. I look to those who are still energized, who are keeping on, who say the things we’ll need to hear, and I don’t see myself among them. I have nothing to add. I wish I did.
I'll be looking for those things that gladden my heart, and I hope I’ll be able to write lightly again. I have to, at least some of the time, though I'm not feeling it now.
There has to be more than this.
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Ramona, I haven't posted anything except comments for the last few days. I too have lost, hopefully temporarily, the urge to write.
I feel like any control I had - which is very minimal given I am a Canadian - is gone completely. I just realized I have theatre tickets to a local music hall for tomorrow and I can't find the energy to go. I haven't seen my youngest grandchild yet and I am making plans to spend some of my precious retirement savings on the trip there, before the inauguration, as I don't think I will be able to afford it again after. That's how far the reach of this election has on the world that this old woman in a different country is feeling profound angst and dread.
We share a border and more importantly, a climate, and we are too dependent on our biggest trading partner, the U.S., to survive his reign. I fear Canada is Austria to HItler's Germany and we will be the first to fall.
Why are we forgetting what Trump confessed he was doing which would give him a "get out of jail free" card? Please read my "Projection is Confession" -- he has manipulated his opponents, us, his enemies within, into not looking at the election machinery put into place during the last four years, because we don't want to abandon the Rule of Law and American tradition. So like the Germans in 1933, when a slight majority of the party with only a slight majority was allowed to take over, we are not goint to look for cheating. We have been "the cheaters" too long, so what have we got to lose as we were accused anyway? Trump didn't want to run against Biden, so Dems fell into the trap of running woman of non-European ancestry yet. She was great, but he is the greater manipulator. He told us he and the HR Speaker has a secret!