I am not the same person I was in October, 2016. I pray I am better. I have to be.
(NOTE: I started writing this one three weeks after the top was blown off the world on Nov. 8, 2016. I never finished it, because it wasn’t done. Twenty-nine months later, none of it is done.)
December 4, 2016 …
I’m not sure I like what I have become.
Or maybe I have become what I like?
These days, I’m as likely to feel like punching a person squarely between the eyes as I am to reach out to some random soul, grab them by the shoulder and cry. I am scared to death it could be the same person …
I walk around in a haze. If you are there I might not see you. If you are talking I might not hear you. What happened to us? What did we do?
I wake up every day, rub my eyes and wince. Then I walk around in a daze. I go to sleep. But not for long.
Something terrible just happened.
Before I beat you to death in the first person, I want to offer fair warning this could get weird. Because I am not sure what just happened. I’ve written some shit the past few weeks I am not even sure I believe in. Just to cope, I guess. We have to cope. Somehow.
Look, I’m tired, man. And while I type to you dead on my feet, I promise I’m not looking for a shred of solace. I blame myself mostly. I didn’t do enough. I am looking to make sure I come out of all this a better person than when I went in. I better. We better. What just happened?
If you are somehow spending time here right now, I feel you. You are wincing. Hurt.
Most of us are getting enough to eat and have shelter. Many of us have much, much more than that. I do. I have a roof over my head, a decent job (that I fear will become decidedly more difficult), and family that’s better than average and better yet, far more crazy.
We are all exhausted by the events of 2016 and now what has come after. Three weeks ago, America officially became something awful we could easily have predicted had only we looked beyond the noses on our face. Yet it shocks us somehow. How did we miss it?
I am lashing out and losing humanity. I hate too easily. I am dismissive. I am not the person I want to be. I am in an angry, confused haze.
Maybe when I come out of this shock, I’ll find my bearings and do some real good to make a difference. Up until this point I have not done enough.
What was I fucking staring at as it all went by?
…
NOTE: On Nov. 6, 2018, the Democrats swept to major victories in the Midterm Elections, winning 40 seats to reclaim Congress. They cast 8 million more votes than Republicans, picked up seven governor slots, and showed a renewed sense of urgency not seen in a century.
But it isn’t finished.
As I type this on Sunday, March 24, 2019, the Mueller Report is in the hands of an Attorney General who was appointed by Trump because the AG took a shine to him. The GOP-controlled Senate confirmed him. Today one of the survivors of the Parkland Massacre took his life. The second child to do this in the past week.
We are a mess of a place.
