Stay Awake. Our Task Is To Rise and Continue.
So if you read my work regularly, just be prepared. This week I’m not in my “Hey! Isn’t life grand and joyful” moods. I’m not joyful. I’m so angry I’m seeing red. Be warned.
Is it just me, or does everyone regardless of gender feel emotionally and physically exhausted? Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s not just me.
I’ve been meaning to sit down and write about this past week. The last time I felt this drained was right after the 2016 election. Weeks afterward I couldn’t sleep, worrying about things. How I was going to get my prescriptions if the ACA was overturned. How was I going to get a job if something happened to the American Disabilities Act? Because let me tell you something, a man who didn’t want braille near the elevators in Trump Tower doesn’t cherish the disabled. Just trust me on this, okay? There might be people who think I’m overdramatizing, a snowflake, whatever. Well, you know what? Stop reading this right now if you think I am, take your little MAGA hat and go away. I’m tired of trying to understand why you worship this man who brings drama in everything he does and has made this country a reality show that has no commercials, no endings, and endless fear.
Yes, I’m talking about Brett Kavanaugh. I mentioned what he did when he presided over the trial over Jane Roe. Then it came out he was accused of attempted rape. Yes, I believe her. If you don’t like that, I’m sure Laura Ingram and Ann Coulter have beautiful things to say on their twitter feed. I can’t see it because I deleted my twitter account. It’s another essay for another time.
See, I’ve been naive. I’ve been thinking oh, let’s try. Just try to see another point of view. But you know what? This week I’m just done. Maybe it’s because for two years I’ve lived in constant anxiety about what was happening to this country. Maybe I’m a tad sensitive about women not being believed after writing about a girl who was raped and murdered and her case went cold for years.
But if we’re going to be honest, it’s been going on for years, I grew up loving John Hughes movies, but now I realize how they are. Jake Ryan hands off his blonde girlfriend to The Geek in Sixteen Candles. What a knee slapper! Duckie stalking Andie in Pretty in Pink? True love! Oh, that’s our Duckie! It’s not just Hughes; in St. Elmo’s Fire, Rob Lowe’s Billy verbally abuses Mare Winningham’s Wendy, tries to rape Demi Moore’s Jules, and forgets he has a wife and baby daughter. There are others, but I’m getting tired and don’t feel like writing about them right now.
Gloria Steinem once said, “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” Gloria was right. I’m pissed off. I watched on Thursday a man who odds are never been held accountable for his actions. He interrupted several United States senators — who didn’t get those titles in a raffle and maybe deserve respect — several times. I watched one senator enable him saying how this was awful, what was happening to him. Because this has been a cakewalk for Dr. Ford, who has gotten death threats. Because so many women have been triggered beyond belief. Because if this man gets this job he’s interviewing for, well? Let’s just get those red coats and white bonnets!
I refuse to believe this. I cannot believe this. Call me a Pollyanna, but I want to believe this is all temporary. That as a culture, in the words of ee cummings, the eyes of our eyes have been opened. We can see those 80s movies like relics of the 1940s where they call Germans and the Japanese racist names and explain to children why it’s not acceptable today to do that. We can look forward to the reboot of Designing Women. We can keep calling senators and tell them we want them to do the right thing. We can vote. We can make donations to Planned Parenthood in memory of Spring Adams. As a person who believes in a Higher Power that I call God, I will pray that the FBI will do their job thoroughly and responsibly. We are awake now. We need to stay awake.
In Wendy Wasserstein’s An American Daughter, the main character has to withdraw her nomination for Surgeon General. Her crime? She didn’t do jury duty because she was so busy with work and her family. Throughout the play, her father keeps quoting General Ulysses S. Grant, a distant relative of theirs. “Our task is to rise and continue,” he tells her. Okay. No matter what happens, no matter how defeated we are, our task is to rise and continue.
And also, try to find life grand and joyful, no matter what.
Just stay awake.
