Trying to Make Sense of Things: Reflecting on the Current State of America

I feel like I have spoken before about how I have viewed America and how I recognize my place of privilege has colored that. So, when I reflect on what I was led to believe America was supposed to be, there is an idealism that I truly believed we were all striving for. I believed that we were working to be better citizens for each other and the world. I thought we would stick up for fellow Americans and that we wanted to welcome people here who were in circumstances in other countries that were terrible. I did not believe that the plague on the Statue of Liberty had any qualifiers, but that we were trying to play the role of protector of those who were less-fortunate. Imagine my surprise when I found out how racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, and a whole-ass litany of other terrible things we are. My experiences meant I never had to confront those things; I could go along merrily believing we were all good and trying to be better. Some days, like when I see ICE murder a woman in her own neighborhood in broad daylight, make me wish I could go back to that. But now, apparently caring about my neighbor and the America I was spoonfed means I am woke. If that is true, I feel it is my duty to stay that way and not fall back to sleep. There is a sense of patriotism that comes now with the idea of being woke, when the guiding principles I am following are simply those that Jesus taught, and those that supposedly our country was founded upon. Not as a Christian nation, but a nation that sought freedom, liberty, and justice for all.

My eyes are open at times in a way that feels like a recreation of the scene from A Clockwork Orange. I want to look away. I want to close my eyes, but my job is to not blink. My job is to see it all, witness it, and then speak against it. Act against it. And also to help others navigate it and bear some of their pain in the meantime. Some days it gets really hard to help others bear the pain when I myself am in the same pain. When we are both fearful and worried, who is leading? Who is offering comfort? I guess the good news for me in my role as a therapist is that I am not seeking to be a leader, nor the expert in the room. I am a fellow human grappling with the same stressors and pains, but hopefully with the right tools to steady both myself and the person I am connecting with in the therapy space. Sometimes that may be jokes, sometimes it may be rage, sometimes it is just an open and listening ear or a shoulder to lean or cry on. I am swimming up a stream that is flowing like a fire hydrant, and I am doing my best not to let it discourage me from my appointment upstream. But there are days when I want to just stop fighting and let the water carry me where it may. Some days, the weight of it becomes so much, and I want to escape, to just have a day where everything is fine, but the knowledge that it isn’t, and that people depend on me, means I can’t. My kids need me to show up “okay” for them. The next client, the potential client, my family, my partner, my friends, they all need something at various points. None of them take, but all of them need, because we are all human and all need. And I give willingly and without judgment or malice. Because this is who I am and what I can do. But it feels like being on the frontlines, emotionally speaking. Absorbing all of it, working to understand all of it, and not being able reassure nor be reassured.

I wish there were a breathing exercise, or a mindfulness tool, or some visualization technique I could offer. I wish I had something that would lessen the weight so many of us are feeling. But all I have is community and a (mostly) unyielding hope. I can’t offer more than that, but those are things I can offer consistently. I can only do that because I work to try to take care of myself in the moments of solitude. I try to do the things that bring me joy, or a smattering of happy chemicals that are obtained by not doing something detrimental to myself long-term. I think of the struggles my dad and grandad went through when they were far younger than me. Going to war in a foreign country. I can only imagine how scared they were. I, as a grown-ass man, cannot fathom being sent to war. But they did it when they were barely out of high school age-wise. What lessons can I take from my grandad, who fought in a war against the Nazis and fascism? What lessons can I take from my dad, who was drafted into a war he did not want to be in, but who went in service to his country? Both these men are gone, and I can’t ask them. But I can take the lesson of it being my duty to utilize my training in service to my country and my fellow citizens. I can be of service. I can be scared and face that alongside everyone who is in this battle with me. I can understand that some people are called to service, and some people are simply grifters who are born to take, to use, and to harm, and I can help others see that, and help strengthen them against it.

While this administration of losers, grifters, and felons all desecrate this nation, its ideals, and its people, I can speak out against them. I can shine my little light on the murders they do in broad daylight. I can call them fascists and warmongers. I can call them the worst of humanity and try to help everyone in the battle against tyranny and authoritarianism as it rises here. Fuck Trump, Fuck ICE, and fuck everyone who stands with them after watching the murder of Renee Nicole Good. Trump, his administration, and his supporters are the domestic terrorists. They are the threat to this country from within, and they hide it under the guise of patriotism.