When you see, you see.

I do my best to be kind and understanding and to find reasons to hope rather than despair. It’s been a year since we knew Roe v Wade would be overturned, and in that year, things have gotten genuinely scary.

It’s funny, during the two years of the pandemic, I thought it would be a relief to be able to be among people again.

It’s not.

I keep thinking about what we learned in the past few years- and what we lost. It seems like some people used the quiet bubble time to reflect on being better people, do all the things they said they should take time to do while they had time. And other folks… well, hardened. Maybe cause of distance, and the constant fear of who would get sick next. Fear of having to make a living in a way that you knew could cost your life or the lives of those you loved. I keep thinking about what words we could possibly leave behind so folks could really understand what it was like- stuck in our homes, watching the daily updates and feeling so damned powerless to do anything real to help.

(Kinda wide ranging here, aren’t you? Are you getting to a point? Of course I am, I always do, Faith.)

I remember being so afraid for my people… my family, my family by choice, everyone I’d ever met and never met. Crying for fear was an almost daily occurrence, my nerves were raw and shot while I tried so damn hard to just keep on moving through each day, hoping the next day would bring better numbers.

When I tell you I understand the people that started building thick shells, who lost the empathy for others, I truly do. There was a time when I was that person, and I hated myself more than anyone else. I couldn’t stand to go back to being that person, so I cried. I prayed. I hoped. And I hung on to the moments of peace and contentment I could find.

I truly believe that we are where we are now due to that amputated limb of empathy. For a lot of folk, when they aren’t directly impacted, closing their eyes to pain is the true new normal. Whether it’s a mass shooting, children unable to be who they are, women forced to carry non viable pregnancies to term- it all becomes the new normal.

Somewhere along the way we lost the idea of everyone finding their own path to peace and happiness. And it seems like if folks found a path that isn’t the straight married people with 2.5 straight kids, reasonably prosperous regular jobs, and a big enough house, then they can’t possibly be happy. Must follow the life script, must be like everyone else.

The animosity towards the folk that dare to be happy following a different script is heating up. Animosity towards women is heating up. In the past week, I’ve seen comments about ending women’s suffrage, how you aren’t fulfilled as a person if you’re a woman who has no children, that women don’t exist on the internet.

The comments don’t disgust me as much as the fact that I saw no voices raised against them.

And here I am, back in the pandemic mindset, only now there is no end in sight. The disease that has taken over the population is hardness and hate that blast out in so many directions that you don’t know that there is anything at all real you can do to help. It’s wanton and corrosive and the carriers look like everyone else.

It hurts. It hurts to see people carry around hate for themselves, for women, for people that don’t think the same. More and more it feels like this is the real pandemic, and I don’t see the end.

I only know one way to cope- and it’s not by fighting. I’m deeply tired of how everything we don’t like we put into terms of conflict. We declare war on drugs, on poverty, on whatthefuckever. No one wins wars.

So I will hope. And I will keep trying to be the best person I can be, no matter if I have to give up from time to time, that’s okay. I forgive me for that, and I know every day is a new chance to try again. I will let my people know what they mean to me, hold them close and precious in my heart. I will guard that which brings me joy and contentment and I don’t give a flying fuck who doesn’t like it.

It’s the only way I know, and I found it way too late in life to give it up.