A Little Something for All of Us Feeling People
Have you been feeling drugged lately? A little loopy? Just a little out of sorts?
Or maybe it’s a little worse than that, like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop or as if some upsetting or disappointing news is about to hit? Like you’re reliving a terrible anniversary that your body remembers before your brain recognizes it? A sense of doom?
I have. Since January 20, to be exact, but it started after the election. It’s gotten far worse, though. At times, my nervous system has been so keyed up, it’s like I’m expecting a boogeyman to jump out at me. I talked to John and he’s been feeling it to a lesser extent, just kind of an out-of-it feeling along with a side of dread or foreboding. A few friends have mentioned it as well.
I am used to shifting emotional tides but also that I will settle into my usual point of normalcy. These days, though, not only are the inner-waters much more turbulent, I feel like my usual tide level has dropped by at least a few inches into a new, uncomfortable, lower normal. I’m drained and feeling uninspired, but also worried and so very anxious. It feels like a constant tug-of-war between sadness and anxiety with the understanding that no matter the outcome, there is no winner. Either way, I fall back or get dragged forward into something I don’t want.
It’s perhaps the first time I have internalized geopolitics in such a prolonged way. I have been both deeply upset and elated by election outcomes and policies adopted and dropped for years, and I am used to the state of things altering my mood but this is different. It’s not just the sustained feeling of it, it’s the depth and the dread, it’s that it is so somatic.
It’s the feeling that anything can happen at any moment. It’s the feeling of waiting for the bad news to arrive just so the dread can be over. It’s knowing that the kleptocrats and broligarchy are messing with our lives and the lives of future generations, especially the most vulnerable people, without guardrails or the barest recognizable moral centers. It’s the impression that it’s a just game to them and they are itching for the spoils. It’s the fear that when the smoke clears, when the final flag of domination has been stabbed into the last bit of earth remaining that hasn’t been mined to dry ashes, when the libs and their silly notions about fairness, compassion and a sustainable future have finally, resolutely been “owned” and eradicated, we will see who’s still standing with their bounty. And I think I have a pretty good idea.
We knew it was going to be rough when he got back in office; Trump is not known for keeping his word but his vows of retribution are different and unrelenting. Those grudges he will uphold without wavering, and he is flanked, aided-and-abetted, by billionaires who have their eyes fixed on much bigger loot than this lifelong scammer and his petty grievances. Trump is just the blunt instrument they needed to gain entry to the places they needed access to and it helps that his brand of acting out distracts the public from their end games.
Who knew that the end would be so utterly, mind-numbingly stupid like this, though? That we would be watching this live demolition derby and gutting of our country with mouths agape in disbelief, shaking our heads sadly, stunned into speechlessness, resigned into acceptance? Each day, there are more casualties to this blood sport of vanquishing and ideology of gleeful brutality. Each day, the piles of wins and other shiny objects are sorted and fall into fewer and fewer hands. They’re not so much competing against each other in their holy war of unbridled greed and acquisition; they are combining, after all, merging forces, transmogrifying into one grotesque, grabby glob. Maybe at some future stage, it will be at that point where they’re battling each other but for now, we are the objects to get out of their way as compliant foot soldiers, as useful idiots, as temporary impediments to finally erase.
I know this hasn’t been a light and breezy read, if you’ve made it this far. My way out of despair, though, is through it no holds barred. There is no going around it. If I can’t be honest first, I cannot see clearly.
I have no recommendations, but I do share a front row seat along with you in this race to the bottom and what I can say is everything you’re feeling right now — anger, despair, regret, fear, grief, disbelief, numbness — is justified and temporary. Let the emotions move through you and us without trying to bypass or micromanage them.
We have to be strong together, not with a unified voice (because that will never happen and that’s okay) but in a million creative, chaotic ways that they can’t control. When some of us fall back into protective mode, the others — the ones who have less to lose, the ones who are better rested — can move to the front, face the worst of the current and create an updraft to make it easier for the rest. We do have to face this head on together, though, in order to not let it blow us all over, which is absolutely what they are trying to do.
What you’re feeling is justified and you are not alone. Don’t get blown over and stay down, though. Don’t let them do it. There are millions of us. Brush yourself off and stand back up. Keep on rejecting the cynical, silly notion of their inevitability. Just don’t forget to move to the back when you need to and rest. We’ll be here when you’re ready to move to the front again.
Marla Rose is cofounder of VeganStreet.com.
