There Will Be More & More Until Something Cracks
Well, I had a rough day. Too much to explain and I'm okay... but I think sometimes it's valuable to share the emotional stuff. Okay, I know that it is.
I don't freaking like these days. I don't like having rage and sadness and anger and frustration all mixed in and synergistic and feeding off of each other and ramping up.
I don't like that I've had more than one of these days in the last few months.
I don't like having these days at all. Before the war started in February, I had very very very rarely even had these days. Not for years. Not since 9/11.
The intensity up in this country is real.
I can't help but picture what the threat is in front of us.
What I picture is a heavily armed society that's ticked off and increasingly tense and mad about all of the things.
I don't see how that's going to work out well. It hasn't so far.
I keep picturing Americans getting mowed down by rapid-fire gunshots.
How can I not picture that?
I don't even have to picture it.
We have description after description of it happening at the grocery store. At the church. At the freaking elementary school. At the freaking bloody elementary school. At the now very, very, very bloody elementary school.
Why would all of that not happen more than it already has been? Americans getting mowed down by rapid gunfire?
The only thing we don't know for sure is... who's next?
Tons of other questions. But how is any of this sustainable?
I mean... it's not.
It's totally not sustainable.
I think we're a long way from turning the corner on it.
I think we're going to have more and more and more of it until something cracks.
I don't know what that crack is. No one does.
It isn't just the guns.
It isn't just the guns.
I'm scared.
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.
I don't even like saying that out loud out here on the internet. It's against all my training about hiding your personal stuff for OP-SEC reasons, etc. It's against my indoctrination as an American to be tough and stoic.
Yet I don't want to see more people mowed down.
I'm scared of who it will be.
It doesn't even need to be people I know.
I'm scared because I know it's coming. I'm scared because it's inevitable.
It's inevitable.
I'm scared because with all of the tension, I think people are going to find themselves or put themselves in increasingly frequent situations where even more violence is likely.
Will that be through protests? Standoffs? I don't know.
In a rare moment of me going all out on a protest, I flew to DC for the big March for Our Lives in like 2018. I did it because a teacher asked me to go. Something like 800,000 people were there.
I was completely freaked out that people with guns were going to show up there and mow down protesters.
I went to that protest with a fully loaded backpack full of first-aid supplies. We went over stop-the-bleed tourniquet stuff and emergency protocols in case of gunfire before we went to the protest.
Will we have moments like that this year... only where protesters actually get mowed down by AR-15 enthusiasts? With tension ramping up all over the place... is that the kind of thing that could happen?
Maybe it wouldn't even be anti-gun protesters who get hit.
Maybe they will be women trying to hold on to the rights we've had for 50 years that could disappear into the ether at any moment. What if it's huge groups of women who get mowed down? Why would that not be a possibility?
How many people will have that on their mind when they're protesting, or not? Huge big protests this weekend scheduled nationwide. Why wouldn't this be on peoples' minds?
I'm good at the worst-case scenarios. People say it's too dark, maybe. Too over-the-top. Too far-fetched.
Sometimes that's a way of being in denial about very real possibilities.
Sometimes that's a way of not wanting to face very real risk. Or do anything about it.
I think the hard truth is I'm not the only one worried about this stuff.
All y'all probably have just as many worst-case scenarios going on in your heads. Especially maybe if you've read this far.
I never like to close a post just stuck in some kind of frustration. Heavy emotion. But how do you pull back and detach from such god-awful possibilities?
I think the answer is we do it the same way we find a way forward through all of this tragedy and trauma.
With connection and community and love and and gratitude and seeing the amazing in who we are here together.
I talked to a very, very patient friend myself tonight who helped get me back to a place of grounding. I wasn't sure I'd get there today. Not after being so very untethered earlier.
That friend helped me think differently about what we can be doing here together. About this moment and about how we can navigate it. So I'll be back tomorrow to help with that. Didn't have the capacity for it today. That's okay.
We have to take turns through all of this. That's because of days like this. Nobody knows when it's going to be our turn to have a rough moment. Or how long it will last.
Keep the faith. We've got good people. We're going to get through this. Most of us, anyway. We're going to damn well help each other through. Whatever it is that unfolds.
That part is absolutely certain, too. Bank on that.
Be safe. And look after some humans today.
We need it. All of us.