The Noise

I am sad. I am angry. I am tired. But I have no right to be. I am just a little white girl from suburban no where, with no danger of being deported, or beaten for being gay, or registered in a database because I’m Muslim. I woke up Wednesday in shock, but my world kept spinning the same as it had on Tuesday. But the more I hear and study and learn, it mentally exhausts me. Should I be worried? Fearful? Hopeful? I have to say, my gut is telling me to go off the social media and regular news grid. The rhetoric is deafening. Nearly as bad as it was in the months leading up to the election. I can’t change who our next President is going to be.  I’m not going to protest or riot, you won’t find me lobbying in the state capital.  Just one of the huddled masses trying to be positive (and failing often), praying for our President-Elect to be a stand up guy and not fuck everything up.

I know we have our problems here in the good ol’ U S of A.  I don’t know whose fault it is. My best estimation is that it’s a collection of everyone in Washington over the past 100 years or so. I’m watching House of Cards currently, and if even a smidgen of what they portray is true? Holy. Shit. Politicians are crooked. Every single one of them. Backroom deals on top of back room deals, don’t know how they keep track of all their lies. Business men are crooked. Not every single one of them, but just tally up the white collar crime that has taken place over the last decade with banks. My guess is higher than 10, and somewhere just south of a million. What we know about is probably just the tip of the iceberg. And who do we place our trust in to regulate them?  The crooked politicians.  It’s a circle of hell, much like school drop off lines.

So a while back I stopped listening to the news. I read my news.  Who has time to sit in front of the TV anyway?  But every time I read something, whether it’s from a supposedly reputable and unbiased news source or trumpsucks.com or hillaryisaliar.com, the next article I read says it’s all bullshit lies.  Everyone, and I mean EVERY FUCKING ONE has a source to debunk everyone else’s sources.  So what are we left with?  A big ol’ pile of nonsense with nothing and no one to believe.  And this is why I’m tired. I’m tired of BEING angry and confused. I’m tired of BEING right and wrong in the same sentence. I’m tired of caring and not having a damn thing I can do about it. I voted, I lost. Sore loser syndrome?  A little bit. But also disappointed in the American people, shamed that he was the best we had to offer.  Also disappointed that she didn’t do better to beat him.

I want to quiet the bullshit in my head.  I want to shut off FB, I want to stop reading, stop listening and just go about my day praying to God he doesn’t do anything that turns my world upside down. But I have this luxury, don’t I?  Most of the people in my little world do. I have a job, I have insurance, I’m not a minority.  I don’t have to worry that our VP elect is going to try and “cure me” of my homosexuality. My outrage is small, comparatively speaking. My worries are trivial. Am I wrong? Does this make me a hypocrite, to be mad but silent? To bury my head in the sand and go on like this nightmare never happened?  I’m still weighing the options afforded to me. I guess I don’t want my silence to be tacit approval of what’s going on in this country, but the noise.  The noise is killing my spirit.

I do know one thing. I will stand up and fight for discrimination that happens in my little world. My son told me a kid in his class at the high school wrote a quote on the board “Homosexuality is a sin,” referencing a book from the Bible.  My son told him “Hey, you can’t do that, this is 2016,” while another kid came up and just erased it, saying to this boy “what are you doing?”  This made me proud. In my house, I want my kids to stand up to bullies. Maybe this can be my contribution. My teeny, tiny contribution, to raise 3 boys that aren’t assholes. I can hope our President elect chooses to become someone they can admire and look up to.  In the meantime, I will urge them to reserve judgement and continue to tear down those that would tear down the progress, slim as it may be, that has been made in this country.

My better half said that “you know who” is an extreme person with some extreme views, ones we aren’t used to hearing. What that leaves us with are extreme reactions.  Guilty. Right, wrong or otherwise, I need to stop. For my own sake. Emotions are high, I hope they settle down for the sake of everyone else.

I want to end this on a high note, on a positive note, wrap it up with a nice little bow. But I can’t. We are just at the very beginning of 4 years of “not sure what tomorrow is going to bring.” My husband keeps saying that maybe different is going to be better, God I hope he’s right.