Four Years

 

This is the first day I have felt I have been really able to write in four years. I've written. But I haven't WRITTEN. I've written things, often passionately. But I haven't written in the way this blog was meant to be written. 

Obviously, we're meant to evolve and grow. When I first started writing, E was little, my world was different, my priorities and lifestyle were different, so the things I was writing about were just different. Even my audience was different. However, a lot of what I used to write about were life hacks, reviews of products, places and services, and even I'd say, more frivolous things. Fun, but definitely more frivolous. I still plan to do that. Hell, I WANT to be able to be in a head space where I can think about frivolous things. Which is what I'm basically trying to say. I haven't felt like I could write about...the banal life hacks of frozen pb&j when I felt the world was crashing down around me on a daily basis. 

Now, do I think that a new President, Vice President, and an 50/50 Senate is a cure all for all the world's ills? No. Of course not. But do I think we're going to have some relief from the almost neverending feeling that we're living daily in that nightmare of being chased, not being able to get away, but also not being able to wake up from it? You know that nightmare everyone has- being chased but your legs are like lead and you can't get away... Yes. I feel like I can breathe. I feel like I have finally woken up from a four year nightmare. 

I didn't write the day after the 2020 election, even though it appeared the Dems won. I didn't write when it was finally called "for real". I didn't write yesterday when I heard about Warnock and Ossoff winning in Georgia. Because I still, even though I was being TOLD, by every legit news source, and yes, I consider CNN/MSNBC and my man Bill Ritter on ABC Eyewitness News to be legit, that Trump lost, I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop somehow. I've just become so accustomed to the inmates running the asylum so to speak. I've become accustomed to Trump getting away with everything. To his cronies being pardoned. To Trumps lies being perpetuated. To his Republican enablers in the senate stroking his hair for their own agenda and letting our democracy be hammered away at day by day, lie by lie. 

But today I can write. Because today is a new day. Yesterday, January 6th, 2020, was a bittersweet day, burned into our brains forever. It was a day of victory in Georgia, where a black man, and a Jewish man, democrats, for the first time became senators, over their republican incumbents, in a ruby red state. I got to be happy about that for about a half hour before I got texted, "Did you SEE what's going on in DC??" Um, no. I went to the supermarket after alien turtles took over Mitch McConnell's body and he gave the Senate speech of his life. 

So, on the flip side of Georgia, we have what most will say is the biggest stain on the country's history. Thugs disguised as self-proclaimed patriots stormed the Capitol Building at the President of the United States urging, to protest his loss of a free and fair presidential election. An extremely large, angry mob of minions, desecrated the very flag they hypocritically bitched over people in peaceful protest just taking a quiet knee to, throwing it off scaffolding, to replace it with their narcissistic deluded king's flag emblazoned with his name. All while they broke windows, taking over the Capitol by force, breaking into offices, rifling through drawers, taking selfies, and putting up a noose on a structure they left on the Capitol grounds. The President sat, in the Oval, doing nothing. After he called for this violence, thus committing treason- however someone wants to excuse it for whatever reason. When he finally did speak, his words to the rioters were that he loved them, they're special, and that they should go home. 

We all know what would happen if this was BLM storming the Capitol. There would've been four hundred dead or four thousand dead, not four. By the way- if you're trying to compare BLM protests where oppressed people were expressing anger over innocent people getting murdered by police with no justice to delusional privileged white people rioting and taking over the Capitol Building, pledging allegiance to a man over country, over not liking the outcome of the election- you're also delusional. So, bye girl, bye. You don't have to read here, and not sure why you are.

I saw some people on social media say things like- "we need to all get along". Or "this is on both sides". One person, who, I once loved, I once respected, I saw was actually THERE, at the Trump rally in DC, posted, with photos, saying it was the largest crowd he ever saw. Posting like it was just a normal Wednesday. Someone he knows posted a somewhat disapproving comment on the photos and the words from him or about him from someone else came up - I'm/he's "not political". Same for those with the kumbayah feelings of we should all just play nice. They want to think they're not political. Or that saying that we all need to be kinder isn't political. Guess what folks, IT IS. 

How is telling people to be kinder, that it's both sides, political? It's privilege. You can only say you're not political, you don't talk politics, you don't pay attention to politics, when you don't have anything to lose. When it's a choice for you. When politics doesn't determine any outcomes for your life, for your business, or whether it means the difference between life or death. When you're going to be okay no matter who is making laws. When holocaust is just something in history books to you, 

Sure, you can think it's both sides when you're not on one of the sides feeling the pain. When it's not even a thought in your MIND, to have to tell your child before they leave the house, what they can and can't wear, how to show their hands, how to speak, etc so they don't get shot by police. When it's not a discussion to have to explain to your three year old why his preschool has a constant police presence because someone is throwing Molotov cocktails into windows of schools like his just because of your religion. Why you have to explain the games the gov't plays with peoples lives is why you're on a food line. Why you have to explain to your child why they can't get the medical/school/psychological services or why they can't use a bathroom they desperately need because some lawmakers decided it goes against THEIR religious beliefs. I could go on and on. 

If you really want to be non-political, then be non-political and shut it. Just don't say anything then. Don't sit high upon your horse and tell other people to play nice. Just stay in your lane, show whatever lovely version of your life you want people to see, post about your dinner, possessions, and vacations or whatever on social media and go about your business. Let the rest of the people talk the talk and walk the walk. Otherwise, if you're going to put it out there then, expect those who do walk the walk, or know what it's like to be in the crosshairs of any of the grotesque isms and phobias that Trump emboldened over the past four years- racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, or affected by life loss or business loss due to covid, to push back to your kumbayah. Not everyone has to be an activist, but no one cares about your armchair quarterbacking either. Save it. Or have skin thick enough to take the heat. 

If you really want people to learn how to get along, maybe try to figure out where those are pushing back are coming from. At least educate yourself that the whole "can't we all get along" and "it's both sides" rhetoric is rooted in white supremacy speak. It minimizes the role race plays in society. History tells us that this is a nation that empowers white supremacists and, periodically, groups of white people leverage that power to target, harass, discriminate against, and murder minorities, not the other way around. Trump ushered in a new era of white people leveraging their power to target, harass, discriminate against, and murder minorities. Those same people were allowed to breach the Capitol. Don't just double down, insisting you're right when people are trying to explain from their place of hurt.

So, here are my final thoughts on all the current mishegoss. It was a horrible four years. I've had to face really difficult and ugly truths about people I once really cared about. I've spent days angry and lashing out at people I've known forty years and at strangers online. I've felt rage and sadness I've never felt before in my life. 

However,  I'll try to look it at it this way...Maybe we needed it. The orange clown pulled back the curtain on Oz so to speak. He showed us every loophole, every shady way to deal, every technically legal way to be an outlaw in the highest office of the land with the most power. He exposed every danger when a madman is given the keys to the kingdom. So now we have the power to fix things if we so choose. We almost don't have a choice now that it's all out there. We know who has blood on their hands. We also know that elected officials aren't anything special. Just like celebrities, they put their pants on one leg at a time like anyone else and they can be just as dumb or cuckoo as the next guy. They don't even necessarily have to be educated, and even the educated ones can be dumb. We can do better. Now we know that instead of caring about Kim and Kanye, we can care more about how the Electoral Collage works. Or we can care about both. I guarantee most people didn't even know how the Electoral vote finalizing really worked until yesterday. Clearly, our own president didn't, nor a handful of senators and congressmen. 

We can do better. Today is the start to that hope. I'm going to remain optimistic because that's all I can do. At least today. I deserve today and I'm taking it. Four years was enough misery and anger for me. I just feel like I can finally be on the way to reclaiming part of who I used to be again. I can concurrently teach my kid how to be an activist and, continue to loudly stand up for what's right, walking the walk, while still giving life hacks, tell you I found leggings and pie that I love, and throw in some reality tv for good measure now. I even washed my hair. It's a start. 

I'm looking forward to some time with Sleepy Joe vs stomach churning presidential lunacy taking over the daily news cycle.

*Please excuse any grammar or spelling issues. Blogger took away the spell check or they hid it, I don't know. I tried YouTube for help but I can't sit through videos for that.