Kill your heroes

Every election season we set about setting up our hero. The person, the guy, who will represent us and move the country in the direction that we think is best. This goes through several stages, but it culminates in this "election night" nonsense. The winner isn't chosen on election day. 

Democracy is not a once in four year spectator sport.

Democracy demands that you get up and get involved. Get your skin in the game. 

For some of us (BlPOC, Native Americans, women in general) our skin has been in this fucking rigged game, voting year after year for men who look nothing like us and who can never understand what it is to exist in the world as women, as BlPOC, as LGBTQ, as Native and hoping against hope that the person who wins might make an effort to understand and do better. Promote policies to make our lives better, to improve the world we live in, maybe try to advance policies that won't just fuck everyone except the old rich guys over. 

The fact that this election is even close, is even a contest, is insulting. Just to be clear, Trump is the antithesis of equity, justice, fairness, or anything else that's good unless you're white and rich.

I am not white, nor am I rich. I am the sole earner in my household. My husband lost his job just before the pandemic and thank God because he has been needed at home to help homeschool  our kids. Trump's policies have not helped my family. They have not put more money in the bank or made the future brighter for my children. Trump does not care about me or mine. 

Trump cares about himself. He cares about what makes him look good. He cares about power. He is a narcissist. 

I know it doesn't matter now, now that people have decided and votes have been cast and decisions have been made, but I want people to know. Voting for Trump is a vote against the people next to you. Voting for Trump is a vote for social policies that hurt people. Voting for Trump is voting against our own well-being and future. I want to be on record saying that so when they come to take me away for dissent, at least I earned that shit.

This virus is stupid and (sometimes) people suck.

I sat at my desk this morning, and I cried. I was typing notes, thinking about my clients, and it struck me again how many of them we might lose to this pandemic.

And how people in power do not seem to care that we might lose them. That their deaths, and the deaths of our elderly, and our sick, and our neighbors and friends, our coworkers, might just have to be the price we pay for a "good economy."

I look at those who are helping, who are showing up in spite of everything, who keep doing the good, necessary, hard work of keeping us safe, keeping us fed, keeping us well, and it makes me sad.

We are not testing people at the rate we should be. We are only testing people with possible exposure or showing symptoms. People are still partying, still travelling, still shopping, and do not yet see that the price for this frivolity could be their lives, or the life of someone they know and love, or even someone they don't know and will never meet.

I am finding it so hard to have hope. So long as your 401k is good and you have enough to eat, I guess that's all that's supposed to matter.

Listen to the experts, and the scientists, and the health providers, and the people on the front lines. Stay home if you can. Be careful if you can't.

Remember that all human life, any human life, is worth more than the stock market or another roll of toilet paper.

Trying to be OK with "good enough"

Recently someone asked me what I would be giving up for Lent, and I replied that I did not know. I've been thinking about it, and while I don't feel that any one thing or activity is really weighing on me to give up, I have noticed an interesting internal trend that might be worth examining and working on during the season of Lent.

Before we begin, it is important to know about me that my standards for myself are absurdly high. My therapist (when I was going to therapy) has told me that, my family tells me that, my friends tell me that. I am convinced that nothing I do is good enough, even if I acknowledge that I do it adequately. 

Two examples spring immediately to mind. Number one is writing. My whole entire life people have told me I am a good writer. I continue to believe that my writing is only adequate and any compliments are entirely based around being polite, but cannot possibly be sincere. I know I'm not "that good." I'm no famous novelist, not a brilliant poet, an award-winning journalist. I'm alright, but alright isn't good enough.

Number two is singing. I love to sing and have been singing in choirs since I was a small child. I have never had any training, taken any kind of music theory, or studied music in any serious way, but over the course of many years I've picked up a few things, and I'd say I'm alright. Even if someone tells me that I sing well, or that I have a lovely voice, I again will write it off as mere politeness because I know that I am no great singer. I'm alright, but alright isn't good enough.

I spend a lot of time weighing myself against people around me. That person exercises more, that person has way better fashion sense, that person is amazingly talented, that person is funnier, that person is a better writer. Everyone is better, and I'm not good enough.

It's a really self-defeating attitude, because you see, if you aren't good enough, then you don't really have to take yourself into scary, unknown places. Because you aren't good enough, someone better will do it. Someone better will step forward. Someone better, because you, clearly are not good enough so why bother trying? They don't need your gifts, or your presence, or your thoughts, because someone better has brought theirs.

And of course, when I do take my not good enough self out into the world to do all the life things, I have terrible and persistent anxiety that other people will notice how not good enough I am. That they will tell me to take me and my mess of a self somewhere else because I am not good enough and they don't need that.

Another thing to know about me is I am incredibly stubborn, and I refuse to let myself keep me from the things that bring me joy. Writing brings me joy. Singing brings me joy. Making people laugh brings me joy. Helping people brings me joy.  Cooking brings me joy. So I show up to do those things anyway, but it would be nice to do them without listening to me tell me all the ways that they weren't perfect.

So when I think about giving something up for Lent, I mean, sure. I could give up caffeine, or I could give up social media, or fast food, or something like that. But if Lent is about giving up those things that really hold us back from relationship, that really separate us from God so that we can deepen and grow our spiritual life, then giving up those things is not going to help.

Because what I need is a hard mental reset. I need to give up the idea that everything about me is not good enough because I am who God created me to be and that is good enough.