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There are a number of things about being in the world nowadays that are really hard.
Mostly, I keep the harsh realities of our world buried underneath denial, distraction, and a lot of privilege. Every so often, though, reality impinges, I allow myself to feel, and I start sobbing.
I know it not a “manly” thing to do, this sobbing, and being public about it (as I am now) isn’t the most celebrated thing in our culture. But I believe grief is an appropriate response to some of what’s going on in the world, even enough to make a grown man cry.
My hope is that by being transparent about my grief, and talking about some of what is so painful for me, I might normalize the having of feelings, even if they’re painful feelings, and provide solace and encouragement to others who are in a similar state of disbelief and grief.
So, what’s at the top of my list of heartbreaks?
Gaza:
Even though it’s half a world away, and I limit the amount of news I allow myself to take it, I’ve seen enough to know it’s a horror of almost incomprehensible proportions. Part of me, of course, wants to look away. Part of me justifies my desire to look away: “There’s nothing I can do, so why allow myself to be stressed and depressed about it?” I want to stick my head in the sand, and pretend I haven’t seen what I have seen. Pretend I don’t know what I do know: Every one of the deaths in Gaza…now estimated at over 40,000 (!)…is a tragedy beyond measure.
And, of course, it’s not only a tragedy for all those whose lives came to a violent, painful, and horrific end but for every friend, child, husband or wife, or relative who loved that person and was left behind, whose life was intimately and intricately poignantly intertwined with the person who was killed. And, 40,000-plus just refers to the numbers killed. If we add the wounded, crippled, blinded, and maimed, the numbers are multiples of that.
What if bombs were raining down in our town? What if our homes, and our neighbors’ homes, and our downtown were all reduced to a tangled, smoldering rubble? And what if a loved one of ours was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they were taken from us, forever? What if someone we loved was trapped in the rubble of a building and couldn’t be reached in time?
I can’t sit with the horror for too long, but I also don’t want to pretend that it doesn’t exist. It does exist. It’s happening. Now. And I know there are reasons why Israel is doing what they’re doing, but that knowledge doesn’t lessen the impact. I will tell you plainly: It hurts like crazy. I want it to stop!
Democracy:
I take our democracy for granted—or at least took it for granted. I assumed that there was enough transparency in the system, and safeguards, and basic goodness of the American people that our democracy would never be and could never be fundamentally challenged and in jeopardy. Of course, I know big money buys politicians, and our system is in desperate need of campaign finance reform, and voters are disenfranchised for all sorts of reasons, but that such a blatant and unabashed assault on democracy that happened and is potentially being orchestrated in the United States seemed unthinkable to me.
I assumed that even if there were one or two unhinged despots eyeing political power, the systems we have in place and the common intelligence of the majority would have democracy abide, at least here in the United States. But I’m not so sure of that anymore. January 6th was a big wake-up call, as was the recorded conversation of Trump telling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find votes.”
There is an attack on democracy that is hard to comprehend: grief and disbelief.
Climate change:
In spite of all the evidence, and the dire consequences of that climate change, which we’re witnessing, we’re unable to make changes, and we’re rapaciously f*cking up the planet for future generations. I feel sad, and ashamed, that we’re being such poor stewards of the planet, and that we’re going to be leaving a damaged and ravaged Earth to future generations. I’m sorry, future generations.
Donald Trump:
In spite of all that is on the record in terms of who he is, and what he’s done, and how he is, there are still tens of millions of people who will vote for him to be our next president, and he has a real chance of getting elected as President of the United States. I have trouble understanding this. It scares me. It hurts.
It used to be that if you were caught on tape bragging about being able to “grab women by the pussy and get away with it” that would ruin your chances of becoming the next President of the United States. Being credibly accused of molesting a woman in department store dressing room would negatively affect your standing. Being a convicted felon for using campaign funds to kill a story about having sex with a prostitute, when you’re married with a new baby child, would have an impact on your chances of success.
In my world, it should be enough to knock you out of the race. Mocking a disabled person—no big deal. Pushing through a Supreme Court appointment within months of his term ending, while after denying the Democratic nomination of Merrick Garland because it was within a year Obama’s term ending. Setting up the overturning of Roe v. Wade. His recorded “find votes” phone call to Raffenberg in Georgia. A persistent, meritless, and pathological claim about the 2020 election being “stolen”? Nope.
The fact that Donald Trump is the way that he is somehow is not so hard to comprehend, but the fact that 60-plus million voters who—despite all that is on the record about Donald Trump—will still blacken the circle by Donald Trump’s name as their choice to lead this country is almost incomprehensible to me, and deeply disturbing: disbelief and grief.
Please note: I don’t feel comfortable posting this. I grew up with the maxims: “Keep quiet. Don’t speak up. If you speak up, you make yourself a target.” And “keeping quiet” is what I’ve done most of my life, relative to the strong need for speaking up. But I believe “Silence is Violence.”
So, with fear and trembling, I’m speaking up.
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