On Writing My Own Truth

It's scary, it's invigorating, and often it's demoralizing. It's not for everyone.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

For hours this morning I’ve been trying to figure out how to keep from falling into deep depression over my writing and other things but mostly my writing. This happens whenever I go on a political opinion bender, as I have lately, both here and at Constant Commoner.

I’m in panic mode. My heart is racing and I can’t just blame it on too much coffee. I see danger ahead and I feel it in every molecule of my body. My brain can’t take in the fact that with everything the citizens of this country know about him, with every terrible thing he’s done and will keep on doing, with all the baggage he’ll bring with him, Donald Trump could well become president again.

I can’t get past that. It eats me up.

I took a break from politics for a few months back there and I can’t deny I felt so much better. I relaxed. I looked around. There were things that delighted me. I found much to be grateful for.

I stayed away from the news and the pundits. I ignored the columns that would only make me angry. It was my break time, but I knew at some point I would have to get back to work.

‘Back to work’ for me, an unemployed but professional writer on my own, simply means it’s time to switch gears and get serious. ‘February’ means it’s only nine months until the presidential election. My dedication to defeating the worst president ever in the history of my country is self-imposed. Nobody is asking me to do it. Nobody would even notice if I stopped. But I would know. And I have to live with myself.

I know there are many who simply can’t understand that kind of thinking, and I get it. It seems utterly crazy to devote the months ahead to a cause that will resolve, one way or the other, with or without me.

I’m not here to try and explain why this is and why I have to do it. I don’t know why. I’ve been doing this for so many years it’s ingrained in me, and I’m certainly not going to apologize for it. This is me. This is how it will ever be.

And that may be the most depressing part.

Yesterday at Constant Commoner one of my readers said she would be glad when I got back to the writing she liked, which is anything but politics. I didn’t go into the reasons why I needed to do this, I simply said, “Next time. Promise.”

Why did I promise? It suggested I was feeling guilty about taking up too much of my own space with the one thing that means the most to me at the moment. I’ve accepted that most of my readers over there (and maybe over here as well) don’t want to read about politics, and I’ve accommodated them by sticking politics in a section of its own so they can opt out if they want to.

I hate that I feel I have to do that. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I’m the writer here. They’re the readers. As much as I love having both of my blogs here at Substack, my wish, really, is to find a place where my particular brand of political writing is a better fit—separate from my other writing. I don’t think it’s here, but here I am, so here it will be for the duration.

I’m feeling somewhat queasy about that.

Yet, this morning, in my mail, I found a note telling me a new reader has paid for an annual subscription. She agreed to allow her note to be published. In it she said:

Message:

"I enjoy your posts. I am a 69 going on 70 mom/grandma in a rural red county in Ohio. We have a good group of Democratic Women here trying to make a difference and change the image that we molest children and kill babies...our county collected over 1000 signatures for issue 1 in Ohio. Mostly women volunteers led by my husband who trained as a rural sociologist. Thank you for your words of wisdom."

If I hadn’t opened my mail and found that this morning I wouldn’t be writing this right now. I would be moping and stewing and doubting. And now I’m not.

So thank you, Dorothy. Thank you for the work you and your Democratic women friends in Ohio are doing. Thank you for your belief that our tiny efforts are real and important and at one with our quest for an effective, equitable democratic union.

And thank you to those of you who are still with me, still okay with what I write as I try to maneuver through these parlous times. It won’t be all politics all the time, but it will be politics when I feel the need. If I’m feeling this angst already in February I have no doubt it will only get worse.

My history at this guarantees it.

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