Hope, Maybe.

Lately, I’ve been approaching my computer with hesitation. When I’m going about my day, I’ll think of things I want to write about, start forming the ideas into sentences or phrases. I get around to opening my laptop, and the ideas vanish. They’re replaced by doubts. Who cares? Probably no one reads any of this anyway. (Irony, since you are, obviously, reading this…) 

It’s disorienting because I have to wonder where the ideas went and how they were so easily shoved aside.

I’m no stranger to doubt. God forbid I should ever start to feel too confident. Doubt has to come in and keep my ego in check, and then check it again for good measure. Then procrastination, doubt’s buddy, comes along and shows me ten other things I could do to distract myself - sip of coffee, check email, check instagram, check email again, etc. - rather than just sit quietly and let my brain work. It’s not just about writing. It happens with everything. 

Procrastination is just a symptom. It starts with doubt. Once I start thinking the idea isn’t good enough, I’ll let almost anything pull me away from putting words on the page. This is an uncertain time. Current events are the main thing on my mind, hence what I feel drawn to write about. But I don’t feel qualified to write about politics and current events because I’m not a journalist, just a person with feelings who reads. And there’s a glut of those. What makes mine any different? 

I want to feel hopeful because it seems like more people are waking up. It seems like the orange man has done enough things that people disagree with in different categories that they see he was never on their side. Epstein, Iran, this stupid ballroom he’s obsessed with, yelling at Nora Roberts for asking him a question… Is it right to feel hopeful now? Is it safe? 

Things are still bad, so bad, for so many people. ICE hasn’t been getting headlines, but they’re still doing their nonsense. Reporters haven’t been able to fairly cover everything, and major news organizations aren’t able or aren’t choosing to or haven’t been allowed to do deep reporting. And an assassination attempt is a bad thing. I don’t want anyone to die, and it would be horrible for the country for that to happen, no matter who is in charge.

However, hope still seems to be trying to peek around the corner. Parts of the internet, as well as the country, are still on fire. I’m not trying to be naive. But it seems like there are more pathways to reconciliation opening up. It seems possible to imagine a world where this current iteration of "leaders" lose their choke hold on the country. It seems possible that people could return to a place in which lawmakers can talk to each other rationally and make compromises based upon what’s best for the whole country. More people are starting to recognize and be disgusted by the ever-widening gulf that exists between the richest and poorest citizens of our country. More importantly, they’re starting to demand something be done about it. Will anything ever be done about it? I don’t know. It will be difficult. It would require Congresspeople not taking easy payouts, which may be too much to ask of this group. But more people are talking about this and writing about it and posting and videoing and all the things.

If this is what the people want, I have to have hope that change is coming. We still live in a democracy. We do still have a constitution, however much it’s been ignored in the last two years (for example: the president cannot unilaterally start a foreign conflict; he or she is required to obtain a declaration of war from congress, which means you’re not supposed to go to bed on a friday night NOT in a war with Iran and wake up on a Saturday morning to the news that we ARE in a war with Iran), so if we can return to upholding that founding document, we could get back on track.

I know it’s not simple. A simple solution to the problems we’re facing are almost certainly a farce. There’s no single group to blame or single person who can save us. I guess I’m just updating you few readers who open my emails every two weeks that writing has felt difficult because all of this is heavy, and I have no answers. I have nothing new to add. Going forward, I’ll purposely avoid the topic if possible… unless I think of something really good.