Today, I briefly lost my marbles. All of them – the cat eyes, the boulders, the
peewees, the steelies, the clearies.
Every. Last. Marble.
Ron came home from dropping off our ballots and found me
sitting in the backyard, just weeping. He
asked me what had happened, and what was wrong.
I said that nothing had happened, and everything was wrong; that I had
crossed the line from dissatisfaction, pessimism, and anger to pure hatred and
fury. I told him that I didn’t know how
anyone could still support our existing president, and that I had finally come
to a place where I never again wanted to have anything to do with a person who
would vote for him again in November. I
told Ron, during the brief periods when I could actually get a sentence out,
that I hated myself for hating people; that I didn’t want to feel this way;
that I wished something would happen to make sure that our current president could never be elected
again. Then, I ceased being able to
speak at all.
In reality, something DID happen. I watched the Axios interview with Trump this
morning, in its entirety. After a
37-minute-long demonstration of pure egotism, gaslighting, and complete insanity,
I boiled it all down to one conversation snippet (because I am a 1-or-0 person;
that’s how my data-driven mind rolls).
Trump said that we only have way more cases than most countries because
we test more (we are apparently the BEST at testing! We have tested 50 to 60 million
people! [note: we have administered about 57 million tests, but lots of
people get tested multiple times – some daily – so that doesn’t necessarily equate
to 57 million people]). Then, he
said we are the BEST because we have the lowest number of deaths PER CASE. Hmmmm….he already said the case numbers are
huge, so that means the denominator in the “deaths per case” is much higher
than in other countries; therefore, we would definitely have a lower number of
deaths per case. The reporter, Jonathan Swan,
reminded Trump that we are very high (in fact, we are the seventh-highest in
the world) if you look at deaths per capita.
Trump said, “You can’t do that,” and continued to hold out pieces of
paper with simplistic bar charts on them to prove that we are the BEST while
Swan kept saying, “but it’s DEATHS…”. Everyone
really should watch the entire interview, because it holds great insight into
the absolute mental illness of the man who can push a button and release
nuclear missiles, but this one anti-arithmetical bit of conversation made me lose
my marbles (even the aggies and red devils).
I decided, while sitting in the backyard waiting for the
birds and the breeze to calm me down, that there are a lot of people who voted
for Trump in 2016 who likely won’t vote or him again; some of those people are
dear friends of mine. But if people vote
for him again? I have literally not one
inch of space in my life for them. I
want them out of my life (I’d love for them to be off the planet, but I can’t
control that). Then, the guilt set in
and the weeping began (cue Ron’s homecoming).
After a long conversation (during which, I’ll admit, I was
asked very gently if I needed medication and I thought yeah, if it’s cyanide
and I get to administer it to whomever I desire), Ron finally got down to the
simplest question: Do I want to have a contentious, hate-filled relationship
with my next-door neighbors? (They were
the closest, most glaring example of people who will again vote for Trump). I had to think about that; I do, honestly,
believe that another four years under Trump will mean that my children will not
die from natural causes. Do I want to
continue hating people who will empower him to start the spiral into global
destruction? No, I do not want to hate
anyone. It takes too much energy, and it
makes me miserable. Well, he said, then
ignore them. If they speak to you, just
don’t respond. When you post something about
our responsibility to wear masks on Next Door and they add insane conspiracy
theory propaganda as comments, shut the post down to future comments and state
why (I have done this, in the past).
Stop hating and start ignoring.
In fact, ignore everything for a few hours, to get a feel for it.
I thought my beloved was being overly simplistic, and just
didn’t get it.
But hey, my current way of being sure as hell isn’t working for
me, so I gave it an afternoon.
Every day, my sweet friend Alba sends me a link to a song on
Spotify, as well as a text with what she’s grateful for and what her “manifest”
is for the day. So, I clicked on the song
link. It was a song from the latest
Taylor Swift album. I love Taylor Swift.
While I was listening, I added to my Spotify playlist about
a dozen albums from bands I had never heard of, based on an email my dear
brother had sent me a couple days ago to get me listening to music again, instead
of mind-exploding news. Then, once
Taylor had finished her song, I started in on one of those albums (the
eponymous first album by a group called The Meadows).
To top it off, I listened to this while sitting in the sunshine
and giving myself a really good manicure (the ultimate act of self-pampering).
An hour later, my nails are less splintered, my eyes are
less red, and I have hope again.
Of course, this is all made easier by the fact that my
neighbors are currently not in residence next door; but, I’ll cross that bridge
when I come to it. And, my attitude
towards Trump supporters will be like that of Trump himself toward Ghislaine Maxwell;
I’ll know that they’re contributing to corruption, pain, and criminal behavior,
but I’ll wish them well and then say I don’t know them.
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