10/1/20

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Well, a confession.

I don’t have a Moment this week.

I have to be honest. I really struggled, trying to work my way through all of my memories of this week, and trying to come up with a single Moment that I could describe as happy. Memorably happy. I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking and digging.

And I just couldn’t.

It seems like the whole world has dwindled down to a couple things that wrap themselves around our minds and souls and psyches and throats and infiltrates every aspect of our lives. COVID. The election. I am so sick of people who won’t wear masks and who complain about wearing masks. I am sick of people who still think this is a grand hoax, despite the month after month after month of numbers. 200,000 dead in our country alone. Think of the town you live in. Think of the population. And then compare it to the 200,000. I am sick of the hatred. The racism that I knew was a problem, but didn’t know was a PROBLEM and a way of life for so many people. I am sick of a young boy who was raised to hate people of color, who was raised warped and twisted, being lauded as a hero for killing an innocent person, and then killing more innocent people who were trying to take away his gun so he wouldn’t kill anyone else. I am sick of his mother getting a standing ovation when she attended an event a stone’s throw from my home when I think she should be imprisoned for child abuse. I am sick of the election. The debate about turned me, and so many others, inside out. And yet there were those who praised the president for acting like a bratty two-year old. And for those who instantly chime in with presidential two-year oldness, “Well, what about Biden?”, he held it together admirably well until his sons were attacked. And then he caved to the bullying, and he shouldn’t have. But when he said, “Just shut up, man,” I think he was speaking for me for every single day of this past almost four years.

The lies and the hate, the lies and the hate.

I am sick of not being able to see my granddaughter, except on Zoom. Some people refer to those who wear masks as “sheep”. Well, I’m tired of my granddaughter being treated as the lamb taken to slaughter as her school district sends little students, not the older ones, just the little ones, to face-to-face five-days-a-week school. My granddaughter’s life is worth more than that. And I miss her.

I’m tired of watching my daughter trying so hard to have a great college experience when the fear of COVID has her in classes with masks and plexiglass, or classes on a screen, and her down time is spent alone in her dorm room. She should be learning amazing things, taking part in passionate discussions that spill out of the classroom and go on into the middle of the night. She should be piling into her car to go to the movies with friends, go shopping at the mall, or just hang out on the quad and talk. Her college experience is being stolen from her, by a virus, yes, but also by people who refuse to do the simple things necessary to beat this thing. Her college experience is being stolen from her by sheer negligent ignorance.

So this week, I’m so sorry, but I’m going to bow out from writing a Moment Of Happiness. I am too sad and I am too angry and just too tired.

I am soothing myself by remembering that in 2017, when I did this every single day, creating the Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News blog in what I thought was the worst year of my life, I missed one day that I simply couldn’t do it. And I’ve found myself here again now. I am midway through my third year of writing This Week’s Moment every week and until now, I’ve not missed a single week. So one week out of so many maybe isn’t so bad. But it makes me sadder to know that I can’t do it this week. I would feel like I was lying. And unlike certain people in politics, certain people throughout our country, certain people we stand next to in the grocery store, the gas station, certain people we pass on the street, I don’t think dishonesty is the right thing to do.

One little thing. Last night, before she went to sleep, my daughter Olivia typed to me in a message on Facebook, “I’ll be okay, Mama.”

May we all be.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

I think I need to learn a lesson from Ursula and find a pink blankie.
Aaaaah!

 

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