Tag: fear

Combating Chaos

Published on by K.2 Comments

Too much is happening too quickly, and every day I feel sucked into the chaos. This is a bad time to be a worrier.

On Friday evening into Saturday as the effects of the new president’s travel ban became apparent, I could not force myself away from the news reports. I could not escape the sense that I was witnessing all that I so loved about my country slipping away. The laws we enacted to protect the vulnerable are proving to be much more tenuous than we assumed they’d be. It’s been too easy these first two weeks for the new administration to annihilate laws. And there seems to be no one with any power willing to be a hero of the people.

By the end of the day on Saturday, my joints ached and my chest felt tight. All I wanted to do was cover myself with a blanket, have a stiff drink, and detach. And I’m not an immigrant or a refugee. My skin color is the same as that of the men who penned our Constitution. I will not be personally violated by the ban or the wall. But I am a citizen of this country, and I care.

I am a person who often feels too much. When I read about people being put on planes and sent back to dangerous places where they have no home or resources, I cannot be neutral. When I read about children unable to be united with their parents, I am reading as a mother, and I know the pain I would feel if I was helpless to keep my children out of danger. I don’t understand how anyone hearing these stories cannot feel this pain, how anyone can turn their back while people are being treated this way. Continue reading “Combating Chaos” →

Family Secrets

Published on by K.9 Comments

There are things we do not discuss openly in every family I’m part of. Things that have happened, things that have been done, things that are going on now. There are whispers, meant to be confidential, then more whispers, until the whispers become sighs we all perceive but never mention out loud.

We hide things, because we fear the repercussions of revealing our secrets. Someone might be hurt. Someone might be exposed. Relationships might break down. We drift past each other in silence, too afraid to open our mouths, not wanting to cause pain. We cannot say what we actually feel, what we really mean, so we say less and less of any consequence to each other. We talk about how the job is going, what we watched on TV, how hot it’s been this year. We avoid words like angry, hurt, lonely, lost, afraid. We learn which questions never to ask.

The mention of a specific person can cause pain. The one in jail. The one who left. The one who died. The one who is sick now. A person becomes a secret. The utterance of a certain name carries shame.

The secret child who was given away. That’s me. I was that secret, and I am a secret now. Continue reading “Family Secrets” →

Election Aftermath

Published on by K.Leave a comment

The past ten days have been rough. I have never before cried because of an election result, but I have cried multiple times since Hillary Clinton conceded. My body aches from the stress it is now holding. It has been a very long time since I physically held this much stress, and I know how bad for my body this is, and I know I must take steps to relieve my body of this stress. Writing here is one of those steps.

I am more afraid for my country now than I was after 9/11. That was an attack from the outside, a threat I knew everyone here would unite against. This is different. This is a threat perpetrated from the inside by my own countrymen and countrywomen, a calling to dismantle the very systems that have made the U.S. the free and prosperous country it has been for so long.

People are ascending to power who believe that they should control what the press is allowed to say about them, that they should control who is or isn’t allowed to call themselves American, that they should control how U.S. citizens define their own identities, that they should control what U.S. citizens can or cannot do with their own bodies.

Let’s not pretend this isn’t happening. Continue reading “Election Aftermath” →

The Right Thing

Published on by K.1 Comment

I’ve been in a period of regrouping as of late. I’ve felt off track, or off the right track.

This isn’t the first time. I have a long history of becoming deeply involved in the wrong thing. I’m actually doing much better these days than back when I was a younger adult who stuck it out too long in the wrong relationships and the wrong career and ended up so sick I couldn’t leave my house.

I’ve learned how to let go of the wrong things sooner and how to avoid getting involved in absolutely wrong things in the first place.

I’m doing better. These days when I realize I’ve wandered onto the wrong path, it’s at least a path somewhere in the neighborhood of the right path. I know this, even if I haven’t yet figured out where the exact right path is. I’m close. I can feel it.

Still, there’s room for improvement. I would like not to be so susceptible to being led astray. It’s not even the lure of bright shiny things that woos me. It’s that I want so badly to be part of something meaningful, I’ll follow the wrong path too far, for too long. Continue reading “The Right Thing” →

Fear

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The world is crazy right now, I think. Then I remember that the world is always crazy. There is always danger. There is always injustice. I long to live in a world where these things don’t exist, where there is no trauma to recover from, no pain.

Pain begets pain. Once upon a time one person hurt another person, and that person–knowing no better or wanting to avenge his pain–in turn hurt someone else. And so on. And so on. The only way out is to simply stop. Lay down weapons. Lay down pride and pain. Choose to carry only love. Choose to hurt no one.

But. In this world we’ve made, which we inherited from those who made it before us, we understand that human beings, at root, are mere animals, slaves to the instinct of self-preservation, slaves to fear. How wonderful it would be to never fear again.

How unrealistic. Fear will come, and the best we can do is to gulp it down and continue loving.

Some days I have to look away from the craziness of the world. I focus on trees with their leaves sprouting or swaying or sashaying softly to the ground. I focus on the eyes of my dog trusting me. I focus on the arms that wrap around me in the morning and at night.

Today the sun rose, and I felt its heat on my skin. Today I am able to choose to look away from the crazy.

This too, I know, is animal instinct. This is saving my self.