week 47

I thought I was coping. I was working on my passport application to flee if I need to, my hydroponic garden to survive if I need to stay inside, or get my vegetables from what I could grow myself instead of contaminated grocery store produce. I was checking in on family and friends, making the obligatory but often called-out “liberal white women blue bracelets,” and working on a website/ documentary idea/ dystopian novel to make people one day see what is wrong with everything and do better. I was hurling myself into what I could control— everything I could control, because while there is so so much we can’t control, look at all the things we CAN control! We must control everything we CAN control!

And then, like every other time I’ve tried to not feel my feelings, I crashed over something stupid. I walked into work one day, and when a coworker’s keys, lanyard, and Dunkin’ Donuts were on my desk, I ran from the room in a crazed state, devolving into messy tears and yelling about how I don’t know what else I could do.

I don’t know what else I could do, is the feeling. I didn’t know what else we could do to help turn the election in our favor.

Upon getting a “8 years ago” Facebook notification of a 2016 post, I realized I had been here before. I had the same reaction in 2016 when Trump won the first time, and I slid into a state of half denial and half manically trying to DO THINGS, do whatever I could to make sure I was okay, my family was okay, and everyone was okay.