Some days it all feels like too much. I try, we all try, to carry on with life "as normal" but what is normal? Many days I forget what normal even used to be.
I know I am blessed and privileged and have very little to complain about in my physical world. Lovely, warm home, great husband, family nearby, friends, enough food and money to not have to worry. Creature comforts and loving support? Check.
Still, this morning I feel like the world out there is caving in and my safety is only an illusion. Plus, I'm emotionally spent. Saying that, there is also a voice in my head assuring me I'll be fine; I'll get through this rough patch and find hope and joy and connection again, but right now I also hear the voice full of woe and warning and feel my body responding with the familiar vertigo of anxiety.
Over on the yoga blog that I write I advised recently to 'be with what is'; that all things change, all circumstances pass. Today I'm struggling to take my own advice.
The current president still has not conceded the election and is continuing his chaotic quest to challenge the results with legal action, lies, gaslighting, and inciting his followers (and his GOP cronies) to rise up in opposition to what is so obviously the truth: he lost. He refuses to allow President-Elect Biden any access to government agencies or information crucial to a peaceful and smooth transfer of power. No amount of pleading and pressure will budge him.
Consequently we are vulnerable on many fronts, including national security, but most immediately around the Covid-19 pandemic which is absolutely raging through the U.S. with astronomical numbers of new cases, and deaths, daily. Biden has a plan for instituting a national response, but needs access to government agencies and information to get a leg up before he takes office. He is being thwarted.
We do not have, nor have we ever had, a coordinated national response to the pandemic. It has been all lies, denials, and conspiracy theories, with a great swath of Americans thumbing their noses at science and refusing to take even the most basic precautions to protect themselves and others. It's unconscionable.
I am dismayed I have to live through this era of political upheaval where our American norms, values, and laws are being upended and ignored, where vitriol and violence (real and threatened) are the order of the day. I am dismayed I have to live through this era of pandemic suffering, ignorance, and blatant disregard for each other. I am beyond dismayed that my grandkids will inherit this mess in some incarnation. Our country won't be the same -- this is a time of historic change. My prayer is that this darkness will be followed by light. The jury is still out.
I try to turn to gratitude. I am healthy. So is my family and are my friends. A vaccine is on the horizon, even if distribution will take many months to reach everyone; some say a year. Biden/Harris will move into leadership on January 20 barring some catastrophic turn of events. I'm grateful to live in a part of the country, in a state, where the governor is taking bold measures to try to protect us by establishing limits on social gatherings and mandating masks in public. States which took early and consistent actions are not as impacted now as those who did not (and still do not).
But as I watch the rain hit my window this morning, I look out upon a gray, wet, chilly world that seems to hold little promise for immediate respite. My thoughts are with those who are ill, alone, dying; with their families in worry and grief; with health care workers and caregivers who are exhausted and nearly unable to go on; with all of us as we look ahead to a lonely Thanksgiving sequestered from the warmth and good cheer of family and friend gatherings just when we need it most.
I still have my little poster hanging up on a kitchen cabinet that says "We Can Do Hard Things". It's been there since all of this started last winter. We are still in it. We are still doing hard things.
At least, that's the view from here...©
Updated statistics on Covid 19:
In my county -- Cases since January: 11,934; Deaths: 258; rate per 100,000 people of newly diagnosed cases in past two weeks: 211.9 (the goal is to get this under 25!)
U.S. -- Cases since January: 11,903,133 million; Deaths: 256,658; over past 7 days, average of 162,816 new cases/day.
Photo Credit: raindrops. Pixabay.com
I feel just like you do. After Biden won, I was so elated, so happy to finally be rid of trump. I had hope for the future. Now I’m not so sure.
ReplyDeleteWhat I don’t understand and never will understand are two things: the obvious, which has been rehashed over and over on many blogs and new sites, just what can of human beings can possibly support a man like trump. And it really says so much about almost half the people in this country. I never knew there was such an abundance of these type of low moral, willfully ignorant people.
But to the second point is how Trump is able to get away with all that he has and is continuing to do. Where is law and order? Where is upholding the constitution? Where are the checks and balances to keep this sort of authoritarianism and dictatorship from happening in America, for God's sake?
Why aren’t there laws to stop this even though, the republicans refuse to put the brakes on him. Are they that desperate for cult votes to become such cowardly despicable people. How do they live with themselves?
This has proven to me, that we do not live in a democracy and probably never have. It has just never been challenged like this before nor had such a large base of brainwashed weak followers.
COVID may be solved with the vaccine, but what about systemic racism, intrusion of religion in our government, refusal to treat all people equally and on and on. How do these get solved with so many supporting this monster?
Well they don’t get solved and it gets worse and in the end , we all lose.
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DeleteI hear you, Mary. Agree. It's all so awful. I hold out hope, because without it there is only fear and despair. And I bring to mind the MILLONS of people who see things clearly and have a vision of America akin to mine. As for the other millions, as you say, I will never understand...
DeleteWhat really gets to me is so much of the stress many of are going through is all caused by one disgusting and dangerous person, trying to destroy stuff on his way out of the White House.
ReplyDeleteHang in there, we have every reason to believe that in 3-4 months from now we'll all be in a better place on all fronts.
Absolutely! It's amazing the damage he has done.
DeleteYes, the last 4 years have brought many revelations, haven't they? And I agree with you that we don't live in a democracy, and never have. Reading Howard Zinn (A Peoples'History of the United States) opened my eyes about that, and a lot of things I thought I knew, and reading Ta-Nehisi Coates' "Between the World and Me" blew my mind. I feel so naive, and at 67, that has been an experience I haven't had in a long time. I truly do learn something new every day. I'm just ready for some positive things, for a change.
ReplyDeleteI have felt naive too. My lived experience has been pretty protected and privileged even as I, as everyone does, has had some hard knocks in life. But I did buy the American exceptionalism fiction I guess, because I never thought good people would let bad things happen when push came to shove. I was wrong. I'm currently reading "Caste" about the underpinning caste system that supports racism in the U.S. Eye-opening.
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