Clarity

I was in the middle of getting my son diagnosed, getting my mom set up with doctors, plotting our next move to get her out of memory care…when the election happened.

During that time I found out I myself probably have AudHD. I started seeing a therapist for that, so at least I can talk to someone about what just happened because what I heard was “We’re afraid of a Black woman so we’ll elect…the guy who already tried to tank our whole ass country once. SURELY HE WON’T TRY THAT AGAIN!”

Then I found out my fellow melanin-deficient sisters and brothers were behind a whole lot of it. That filled me with this sense of disgust and betrayal more than anything. My tubes have been tied since my last kid, but I got my ass out and marched, protested, and voted for women’s rights to be restored in my gerrymandered shithole of a red state. But when it comes to going to bat for gbltqia+, a whole lot of people want to believe the fucking lies they’ve been fed.

That actually wasn’t a shocker. Growing up in a conservative christian family, I already had enough religious trauma to never want to set foot in a church again. I learned to mask and hide things a lot. I’ve had several family members damaged by religion taken too far. Or it was just used for control.

Welp here we are again!

This has been one of the hardest years of my life, taking over Mom’s care (speaking of the damage an abusive asshole can do, she has terrible anxiety and codependency), advocating for her and both kids, and trying to keep it together and somehow move forward. I’ve felt like I’ve been in purgatory since February and half-assing everything because there are so many moving parts.

But now that the other ugly-ass shoe has dropped with this election, we find our choices narrowed for us a bit, since we sure as fuck aren’t moving to another state where half the populace are waffling over such big questions of “Do we really have to let women and gay people have rights? What about POC? What about immigrants? Should we destroy the country and world with more of a slow climate burn, or rip the band-aid off and go nuclear? Let’s ignore science and go with mythology instead!”

I’m making a list of towns I want to visit over the holidays in two different blue states, and am hoping we can find a community to participate in and contribute to again where we feel accepted. Not just lip-service accepted – “I voted to keep you safe” accepted. That leaves a sad little handful of states, since apparently the trans community is the target of Satanic Panic 2.0.

Humanity as a species is seriously disappointing overall. I knew this shit was rigged from childhood when I found out I couldn’t grow up to be a cat.