Remember last week when I wrote about being anxious and worried and, gosh, I really hoped it would get better soon?
I miss last week.
Last week was like a vacation. Last week, I swallowed back jitters and small to moderate swells of anxiety. Swells like little waves. Like being on a float on a lazy river in a water park.
I was anxious and worried about a work project.
As it were, my concerns were justified.
This week has been code orange fight or flight mode, pretty much all day every day. I’d like to make a flippant comment here, but I can’t. This is hard and it sucks.
I read the teeniest bit of a transcript from Thursday’s horror show of a press conference and found myself making noises like Speed Buggy. If you don’t remember Speed Buggy, then you’re a baby.
I just wanted someone to make me feel better for a few minutes. Tell me the right combination of 
words that will give me some hope and assuage at least some of this fear. I just want someone to tell me that it’s gonna be alright.
Remember that song Lullaby by Shawn Mullins? The chorus to that song was going through my head and it occurred to me that I can do this part. I really can. I can say that everything is going to be alright, because it is.
Do you know how I know?
Because people go on regardless of whether the good guys are winning or the bad guys.
Any other time, I would say to apply “good” and “bad” labels is oversimplifying life to a ridiculous degree. But we currently have batman villains advising the president, so I feel okay with the whole “good/bad” thing.
We do go on.
No matter what, people write music and stories. We paint and sculpt and read and cry. We have babies and work jobs and fight with our kids and our spouses. We love our pets and bake cookies and have wild monkey sex. No matter which side is ahead, we do these things.
Not everyone gets to be okay because that is how life works. That is true for all of us. Regardless if the whole world is shaky and scary or all unicorns and glitter. No one gets out alive.
Everything is going to be alright. Okay, other than the whole “no one gets out alive” part. Although, maybe that will be alright, too.
Maybe, a few minutes from now, it won’t be. But right now, everything is going to be alright.
I got this minute for you.
Take a deep breath. Just for right now, believe this combination of words from me to you. Everything is going to be alright.
I know life is scary right now, but you aren’t by yourself.
There are so many of us. So many people who want peace and inclusiveness and clean water and air. So many of us want equal wages and to provide sanctuary for our fellow humans in need. So many of us are done with the patriarchy. We are done with our brothers and sisters being marginalized based on race, gender identity and who they choose to love. So many of us want our children to succeed and to have a planet where they can prosper and do good so their children can continue. So many of us.
Shit is hard right now. So we do what we have to do. We call, we march, and we work together because I still haven’t given up my belief that love overcomes hate. Maybe, I will have to give it up someday. I don’t know. But right this moment, I still believe.
Everything is going to be alright.
Now, you go give someone a moment of peace. Tell them that everything will be alright and mean it. We need this.
Dude was passive aggressive and a little drunk this week. He took selfies to let us know.
I need a Dude – he’s hilarious and a much needed break from daily horrors.
Not gonna lie, I lean on these stuffed dog pictures quite a bit. Randy makes me laugh.
I didn’t even call that a “press conference”. I call that more “uncontrolled, verbal projectile vomiting”. He spews forth lie after lie after lie, doesn’t understand (or have any answers for) questions put forth to him, so berates the reporters instead. I watched it, dumbfounded, as this mentally ill man was allowed to hold everyone hostage for over an hour of his incoherent blathering. It’s like electing Charles Manson to the highest office in the land. Now, he’s down here once again, at tax payers’ expense—how many millions WILL all his weekend trips to his mansion cost us all when his reign is through (and it can’t come soon enough)? Oh, and he’s going to hold a “campaign rally” in Melbourne. WTF??? He just can’t stand all the criticism so he needs to re-live the campaign trail. His 5 year old ego did better there. I know deep down—-somewhere—-that everything will work out somehow, but now I’m torn between the need to be informed, but wondering whether it’s a waste of time, when the leader of your democracy makes shit up and calls award-winning, well-respected periodicals “fake news”. He’s a loose cannon, out of control and, I love how you put this, is absolutely surrounded by “The Joker”, “The Riddler”, “The Penguin” and—well—Kellyanne Schmuckface is NO Cat Woman, that’s for sure! Where is Julie Newmar when you need her?
This will pass. It won’t be easy and the clean up might take longer than I have left on this earth, but it will pass.
Oh, wait! I know! Kellyanne Conway can be “Squeaky Fromme”! HAHA!!!
HAHAHAH
Harley Quinn??
Zombie Spice.
For the Win!!
😀
Thank you, Michelle. I’m trying to keep a stiff upper lip, but sometimes, my anxiety can get the better of me. We all have to stick together, to be the voices of reason and sanity for each other.
That is a deal! We will get through this.
*brings in pillows and blankets*
Fort?
Yes!!
*huddles comfortably underneath blankets*
I knew Lisa would come through with a solution for us! 🙂
P.S. Harley Quinn is just a little TOO cute, even if in a very warped and psychopathic way. At the risk of insulting beloved horses everywhere, Conway looks like a horse that’s been ridden way too hard and put up dripping wet.
Oh. My. God. I just said that exact same thing on Twitter!!
“… K’s not looking healthy…’rode hard and put away wet’ comes to mind.”
And it got liked and retweeted 😀
Harley is the only villianess I know of… wait, who was the green plant woman? Poison Ivy? Uma Thurman style?
*fluffs Tinks pillow*
I just Googled Squeaky… yup, she’s a playa :0
OMG yes. Goddamn blanket forts for EVERYONE!!!
*scootches over*
‘Mere… PLENTY of room 😀
If a situation is giving you anxiety and worry then ask yourself if the situation is worth the anxiety and worry. I had a job that wasn’t worth the worry and anxiety. I got out. Now I have a job that is worth that amount of worry and anxiety – and I don’t experience that worry and anxiety.
I have to weigh that against my paycheck unfortunately. 🙁
This post is all of us. I’ll be making Speed Buggy noises and humming the chorus of Lullaby all weekend. I can’t honestly say that’s a bad thing.
I mean, as far as weekends go, I would call that one a win.
I am so tempted to write a blog post called “Why It is Good that He was elected President” because, within all the dark clouds, there are silver linings. People have woken up from their political stupor, realizing their very rights are in danger. They are taking action. They are engaged. They actually listen to Presidential new conferences and C-SPAN (would you believe, I started to type ESPN?) Maybe things will be all right. But I think it is going to take many, many years to overturn what is started.
I feel this way as well. We needed to be shaken from our stupor. Things were not alright..now they really aren’t and we have to do something about it.
Often, it works for a dictator-style leader to be so outrageous–for so long–that people turn-off, exhausted by “news” fatigue . Then, stressed and anxious, they quit paying attention. That is when the “leader” can really pull off some illegal and immoral shit. The challenge is to stay informed, but remain calm enough to continue to protest and raise awareness.
Absolutely, we cannot afford to look away from this at all. We’re going to need pretty things in our lives to help us deal with this ugliness that MUST be dealt with.
I thought my anxiety hit an all time high Jan. 20, but every day I feel more nervous and I am not even living in the country.
It’s been unbelievable and I have nothing to compare it to in order to decide how to process it and that freaks me out really bad.
Just gonna do the breathing exercise… and pet my glittery fucking Unicorn 😀
Lisa, I think you struck that old proverbial nail on its head in your comment the other day from the Narcissist Take The Wheel article! You mentioned a throw down-show down between thug Putin and thug DT. *DT* THAT’S what we all have! The fucking DTs! Delirium Trump-ens! It fits! HAHAHA!!!!
Oh…. I definitely have the *DT’s*
*eyes whiskey bottle*
Damn… no ‘hair of the Donald.’
HAHAHAHAHA!!!! OMG, no!!! Definitely no “hair of The Donald”!!! Yikes!
Did you not consider that some of us might be too OLD to know Speed Buggy? How sad is that?
I will mine my mental archives for an age-appropriate cartoon noise.
Haha..The sword does swing both ways, doesn’t it? Good luck..Maybe Porky Pig stuttering?
I’m thinking that wheezy laugh of Mutley the dog.
That works! Snidely Whiplash’s sidekick..hahahah
Best evil sidekick ever! Love the Muttley snicker.
Thank you Michelle. I have had a bad couple of days based on 45 and all the twitter does is inflame the anxiety & horror at is happpening. This post really helped. Also I remember Spped Buggy & bought Lullaby by Sean Mullins as a cassette single. Can you believe it?
Hahaha..that is awesome. OMG it has been a while since I’ve thought of cassette singles.
Thank you. We all have to lift each other up.
Yes, we really really do.
“We can beat them, just for one day
We can be heroes, just for one day”
Then the days all add up and it’s over.
Some days we will lose. But on those days I just make myself remember that if love didn’t overcome hate, none of us would be here in the first place. Doesn’t always make it easier, but usually keeps alive the idea that there is something in the future worth fighting to get to.
I’m thinking about seeing Lucius in concert a lot these days. That pulls my focus up out of the little things mucking up my life just now.
When that isn’t working, I make myself remember the Foundry building where we lived from May of 2013 to February of 2016, and that sort of brings back all of the truly awful living situations I have managed to survive over the years, and I find myself muttering “I’m too damn old for that kind of bullshit now” and somehow or other that makes the future look more doable.
There’s a certain therapeutic value in helping with someone else’s burden even for a minute, and I feel we all need to exploit the bejeesus out of that, because we all need both ends of that equation to be there for us going forward.
Thank you again for the hope and solidarity I find in your writing, you do more for me than you know.
P.S. Someone on twitter suggested calling members of the Trump administration “MAGAts”…
Thank you. The future feels terribly daunting, but then I remember that a lot of us have each other. It’s going to be okay. Hahahah MAGAts is perfect
Check out this lady playing the drums. She will make you feel good about everything for a few minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWSJR2pL46M
Oh awesome!!!
I fucking love you. Somehow, in code orange, you find the time to sooth us. ❤
I am so glad!
Hang in there. It is a mess sometimes. Or most of the time.
Hell if I want to come back for sloppy seconds.
It really is a mess, isn’t it?
I fear my poor mother is going to stroke out as she consumes all she can find on TV, cyberspace & print media…
All my reassurances are not working as she despairs “HOW is this HAPPENING?!?!?”
I worry about my mother as well. 🙁
I think this is where I point out that someone might not remember SpeedBuggy because one IS old and it’s gotten lost in there somewhere. (I didn’t click the link because I didn’t want to know if I did know and I’d forgotten…I’d rather think I’m not old.)
Hahaha…well, that could also be the case.
I needed that. My anxiety has been crazy-stupid. As in not leaving the house kind of crazy. I just can’t seem to escape the word “Trump” for even five minutes. He did this dumbass thing, he did that equally stupid thing. He said this derogatory remark…on and on. It’s true though the world does go on with or without us. It feels like the calm before a really big fucking hurricane!
I KNOW! You cannot get away from it. It’s terrible.
Sorry I’m reading this 5 days late. Sadly it all still applies, but I have to tell you, between you and your delightful following, I do, at least for today, sense that maybe we can get through all this. But I’m hiding out in my blanket fort for the remainder of the maniac’s term, however long (or short, please, please, please…) that is.
I am so glad to hear that. I know how hard it is, it takes my fucking breath away. The news every single day just CRUSHES me. But we are not alone. There are so many of us and we are not backing down. We are going to be okay.