Hi all. How are we today? Yeah, I know. It’s a rough one out there. A part of me really didn’t want to get on here & write today, much like I didn’t last week, just because the air is tense & then some. At least that’s how it is here in the US. I also didn’t want to get on here & just start spouting statistics or pulling news articles for you all to pilfer through in a shortened condensed form. That didn’t feel productive right now, especially since there is so much happening & so much information that is falling on deaf ears or being outright ignored in favor of narratives. I didn’t want to get on here & talk about the canonization of certain objectively terrible individuals, nor did I want to talk about the blitzkrieg happening in the scapegoating of certain groups or pushing through of dangerous policies & narratives. I don’t. Why? Well, as I said previously, I feel the people that need to read it won’t do so & at this point I’ll just be adding to what so many others are saying better than I feel I could. Additionally y’all, I’m just tired. I’m overwhelmed at the moment by all of the noise & the pain & the blame & I don’t feel like that’s where my energy needs to be pointed this week in this format.
I think we all feel it. I think we all need a breather, a reset, a reprieve & I guess that’s the point. Overwhelm. The thing I am starting to see however, seems to be the light breaking through the cracks & people are finally seeming to ‘get it,’ which is refreshing to say the least.
So I think I’m going to leave that as the extent of my activism & politics here in this blog. I will say one more thing in the following paragraph, but I’ll definitely save the majority of my soapbox for another day, but right now I am, as so many of us are, worn down.
I don’t know how to effectively bridge the gap here. I hold a lot of space for discussion if it’s done so respectfully & in a way that isn’t overwhelming or just someone spouting talking points at me. I shut that shit down real quick &/or just outright don’t engage, but I’m lost here. I will also never entertain any idea that dehumanizes, objectifies, or vilifies any group of individuals who have no say in an aspect of who they are. Political opinions can change; the color of someone’s skin, their country of origin, their sexuality/gender identity/etc. are never on the table of debate for me unless it’s something that I personally file myself within. Otherwise I’m always happy to chat.
So there you have it. There’s how I’m feeling right now. A little deflated, a little attacked, a little hopeless, a little frantic, a little sad, a little bewildered, & a lot overwhelmed. They tell us to disconnect, but not to disengage, but on weeks like this I really have a hard time doing that. I want to stay informed, I want to fight the good fight, to rally the troops, & show those who may not know what exactly is going down when it is going down, but man does that torch get heavy sometimes. I also know that to a lot of people who follow me, my incessant need to share & keep people informed might be annoying or like water torture. I also know that a lot of times the people I’m sharing it for, the people I write these kind of blogs for, never read them. They continue on their lives with blissful ignorance or shirk me off. It honestly sounds nice, ignorance, but nothing ever gets solved from a place of ignorance.
It’s an interesting place to be, an interesting viewpoint as a human. To see the world for what it is & desperately want the people you care about to see it as well when they’re happier not. It’s definitely isolating & makes you feel like the things you care about don’t matter to the people who claim to care about you. I fully understand that everyone has their own lives, their own obligations, their own struggles & backgrounds. Believe me, I do. I just think a lot of us who feel deeply or see the patterns of the world or who can call things as they are wish that people would care more or actively engage more. That they would try to care because we do.
That’s the part of growing up that we don’t get prepared for, the rifts. We watch our siblings move away, get married, have children, form their own lives & that becomes the priority, as it should. We watch our parents grow old, become grandparents, slow down, & the demands of the role of ‘parent’ diminish around them. To those of us who walk different paths, who live lives that are not centered around our children, that can feel really lonely from a familial point of view. You feel they should still care about you the way they always have & give you a similar amount of space as they always have, but that’s not realistic, it’s not healthy, & it’s not how life works. So it upsets you. It upsets you when they don’t take into account your needs, your personage, who you actually are, when in reality they’re just busy building & living their own lives with their own set of worries & their own set of people that they need to hold space for.
I’m not trying to harp on this or say “oh, poor me,” I just know that there are a lot of folks out there that feel this way & understand what is to be in this position within your family dynamic. They are not at fault for doing what comes natural & giving precedence to the things that should take precedence, that’s just part of growing up it seems, growing apart.
I think that the reason this blog pivoted in this direction is because therein lies the root of a lot of what we are facing right now as a society. We are giving energy to anything other than our relationships or the relationships with other human beings as a whole. We are divided as a world but also as individuals & families & I don’t know what the fix is. We no longer are looking at political divides or policy divides on where tax money should go or how much should be allotted, we are now looking across the divides of ‘who do you think deserves human decency, who do you think deserves to live their lives freely & without fear of violence?’ Something I can be guilty of at times too I’m sure.
We are living with so much fear, so much hurt, so much pain & grief & unrequited love & worry & hate that it cuts us off from our humanity, it prevents us from seeing those who are suffering at the hands of the decisions we may have been a part of making or the role we may be playing in narratives that outwardly tell people “you are not welcome here.” & we fuel this more & more & more until we find ourselves here. Overwhelmed. Scattered. Facing a rift.
I hope healing is coming. I hope that all of this horror is birthing something glorious & universal, but I am losing hope in that. I think a lot of things are going to have to break before they get better & I unfortunately feel that the events of the last two weeks are just the beginning of that. God, I hope I’m wrong, but the patterns are patterning & the fight is proving disheartening at best.
I pray you all find peace. I pray you find rest & a community of people who understand & support you. I pray that each day you know you are loved, even if it’s in the smallest of increments & I pray that you are able to recognize those increments & expand them into something soul nourishing.
As always, much love to you all,
-C