despaired and despondent

but not completely down

I started writing this a dozen times. I’d get a paragraph in and think it was too despondent and delete it then write something that was too angry. But here’s the thing; I am despondent and angry. And I should and can write about feeling that way. I should and can write about losing hope in the face of the next four years and beyond.

I don’t know how many of you will sit through this reading, I don’t know if any of you voted for Trump and will be offended. Frankly, that’s a risk I’m willing to take. I don’t know that we’d have a lot in common if you voted for a man who I think is going to destroy what’s left of this troubled, troubling country.

In many ways, I can’t fathom why someone would vote for Trump. But part of me sees what the appeal would be to someone who is already entrenched in the right wing machine. He brings them everything they want; a sense of moral superiority, someone who encourages their Islamophobia and racism, who emboldents their misogyny. They are people who want to make America great again, but can’t tell you what again means, which part and time of America did they think was so amazing that they’d go back to. Though a suspect quite a few Trump voters would prefer a return to the 50s, when women couldn’t vote and segregation was a thing.

Enough of that, though. If you are a Trump supporter I’m going to assume you will be exiting, and that’s fine. Vastly different ideas of how the world should operate to the benefit of everyone doesn’t make for great relationships, whether they be familial or based on a newsletter.

So here we are, looking down the barrel of another four years of this. People keep saying that we survived the last term of his and we will survive this one, too, but honestly I’m not too sure about that! Stripping the FDA of its powers and dismantling public education alone are two things that will help us arrive at our downfall even earlier than anticipated. He’s got a different team behind him this time. There’s no benign Mike Pence standing beside Donald. There’s the mind numbingly evil JD Vance. There’s mind numbingly stupid and evil Elon Musk. He’s assembling a cabinet designed to wring the most freedoms from the American people. He has ideas (Project 2025) that are dangerous, frightening, and dividing. He is a wrecking crew and more than half this country has said, no, this is what we want! They want a war with leftists. Not with liberals - there’s such a fine line between liberalism and conservatism now - but with the far left, who are the antithesis to everything the far right believes. They would like us silenced. They would like us dead or in camp or shunned by society.

So what do we do? How can we combat what Trump and his team and his followers are putting out there? Just yesterday - one day after the election - right wing creeps were tweeting things like “your body, my choice” and in Alabama, many black students got a mass text telling them they’ve been chosen to pick cotton. This is the world we are in now. How do we go up against that?

Last night I joined a local mutual aid organization, Community Solidarity (fka Food not Bombs). I’m going to help give out food once a week, and I’m also going to help plan drives for toys and school supplies. The benefits here are threefold; I get to do something good, to put some positive vibes into the world; I meet new, like minded people; the citizens of my community get fresh produce and other vegan products. I want to feel good. I want to feel helpful. I want, in even some small way, to hope.

So I will do my volunteering and I will continue work on my website, which is my chance to put a little joy into the world. It’s all you can do. Take part in something bigger than yourself. I know it’s the immediate reaction to curl up into a ball and cry and never leave the house again, and I’m right there with you! I am despaired, I am despondent, I am angry, I am shocked. I don’t want to let all that overwhelm me.

We are exhausted. We are used up. We are burnt out. And most important of all, we are grieving. We grieve the future. We grieve what we will lose, what horrors we will gain. We grieve for our freedoms, for Palestine, for the ideals we had, for the Great American Dream. Let us cry. Let us mourn. Let us crawl into bed for a day or two more and work out our feelings. This feels like the death of an idea, that idea being a free and just America. Death needs grieving. We’ll work on our anger soon, an anger that will drive us to get our voices heard. Hear by whom? I’m not sure.

I’m angry at the people who voted for him. I am angry at the Democratic Party for running a lame campaign, for not listening to every voice, for being for years and years a failing organization and doing nothing to improve. I’m mad at Biden for not only deciding to run again, but not stepping aside at all to let Harris run as president. I feel like he put self before country, and that lessens him in my eyes. Of course, there’s the whole funding a genocide thing.

Ah, where was I? I was rambling, wasn’t I? It’s hard to find a train of thought these day. My brain feels fried. My heart feels heavy. My stomach is in knots and I’m not sleeping. There are thousands of people like me, up at 2am wondering what the hell we are going to do.

I’ll tell you what we are going to do. We are going to organize and protest. We are going to put forth our best selves and bring light into the world. We are going to volunteer. We are going to reach out to each other. We are going to accept the hands of our fellow despaired and bring in this new year together, metaphorically. When we do let’s imagine what we can bring to this year. Let’s imagine what good we can do. Then do it. It doesn’t matter how small it is. Bring your neighbor’s garbage bins in or donate $1,000 to a mutual aid org. They are the same in my eyes. They are both people being kind and thoughtful and helpful. We need so much of that right now.

Think of marginalized people you know. Whether they are queer and/or trans, black or Latino, if they are an immigrant or jobless or homeless, if they are poor, or a woman, they all know what’s coming. Look out for your people. Stand by their side. Fight for them, add your voice to their choir.

I’m going to do my part, but I will slip. There will be days I don’t feel like volunteering at the food bank. There will be days I just want to stay home and feel my feelings and not go anywhere. I have to fight that. For what good am I to my friends and family, to the people who will be hurt by policy, if I am not fighting for them.

I’m sorry for the rambling nature of this, I’ve been trying to get it out since Wednesday morning and this was all I could muster up. I haven’t even edited or anything. This is completely as is. It is 4am now. Sleep eludes me. And that’s fine, because I have work to do.