Sent to me by my mom

My mom sent me this thought. She gets it, especially in relation to my racist relatives.

We can only count on ourselves

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm far from perfect, but I am decent. I'm more than decent. I make a conscious effort to be nice to people, to be kind, and not intentionally to hurt anyone's feelings. As I've gotten older, I've become better at recognizing the difference between someone's bad mood versus his or her conscious decision to speak to me in a demeaning, dismissive, insulting, condescending, hostile, or hurtful way. Generally, I'm very perceptive about what other people are trying to communicate, but I always give the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she's having a bad day. Maybe he's really stressed about something and this is misplaced hostility or transference. Maybe he didn't sleep well. Maybe she has an undiagnosed brain tumor.

Eventually, I do run out of patience, close up shop, and walk away. I've done this my entire life--faster if someone kicks me when I'm down. I'm very good at moving on. When I feel like someone is blatantly treating me with intentional disrespect, why would I stick around? I'm really hard on myself--I don't need that coming from external sources, too.

As 2016 winds down, I'm reflecting on this being the year I refused to let anyone keep undermining my dignity for their own emotional bump. Sorry. No. Bullies and emotional manipulators will no longer be tolerated.

If I don't kill myself, I figure I have, what, 20 or 25 years of life left. That's precious little time to accommodate the mean-spirited and condescending barbs of the disdainful.

I'm terrified

Things I have googled in the last 24 hours:

• Overseas jobs
• New Zealand immigration
• Americans in Mexico
• How much does it cost to forfeit US citizenship
• Best places to retire outside US

I'll probably be out of a job within the year since the president-elect has repeatedly stated he wants to keep out refugees. Hiring Steve Bannon as a top policy advisor seems to make that a more assured reality. Who would have thought that's how my career would end?

I wrote this earlier this week:

I think what I'm struggling with most is that it's all going to be gone, like it never existed: A recovering economy, climate change mitigations, free speech, a free and independent press, religious freedom (unless you identify yourself as a white conservative Christian), immigration, humanitarian programs that give a hand up to the most vulnerable, Social Security, consumer protections, workplace safety standards, environmental protections, a balanced Supreme Court, women's reproductive rights, LGBQT advances, sensible foreign policy, firearm background checks, due process, medical care available to all and not just the wealthy, all of it.

All of it. It's all going away in the next four years, but somehow that makes America great again in some people's minds. I can barely breathe. I can't believe people actually champion those changes. Hitler is back and people are happy about the prospect of implementing Fascism led by a rapist. It is mind boggling. I still think Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" should be required reading for anyone over the age of 18. It's supposed to be a cautionary tale, but I get it that a lot of people consider it a how-to manual.

This prompted readers to say things like, "Oh, you're being dramatic." "Don't write the obituary yet." Let's give the benefit of the doubt." "It's going to be fine, we're stronger than anything the incoming administration can come up with." "He'll surround himself with good people."

I don't think Steve Bannon is a good person. I don't think the followers of his doctrine are good people. Kellyanne the Trump spinner said that journalists and media outlets need to be really careful what they say about Trump, seeming to warn that no criticism would be tolerated--it would be litigated. 

My week of reading finished with Masha Greene's article in the New York Review of Books about surviving an autocracy. I cried.

I don't think I can stay here. I am terrified.

That's what I meant

A friend posted this on Facebook. It is pretty much exactly what I've been thinking this week. I would post it on my regular page, but I understand that the people who should read it, are exactly the ones who won't bother. Their hubris, their lack of self-awareness runs too deep.

http://usuncut.news/2016/11/11/op-ed-an-open-letter-to-the-facebook-friends-and-family-ive-lost-this-week/

Self-preservation, Part 2: The Echo Chamber

I'm trying a different approach with the Facebook thing. I didn't delete my old account, I just deactivated it. It took a day for me to realize that I'm the administrator for three work-related pages, so deactivating my account meant I wouldn't be able to admin my work pages.

I also realized that there were other people I still wanted to have conversations with, but without the ridicule and demeaning comments I had been getting, mostly via private messages. After I thought about it, I realized I wanted a way to process all of my thoughts and feelings about the election outcome (and a few other things) without being smacked down for it. I wanted social media, but I wanted some privacy while I worked through a few things. How to do that?

I reactivated my Facebook account, and then I opened a new Facebook account under a different name. Friend requests, along with an explanation, went out to the people I felt safe talking to, people who I knew would respect my privacy and not share anything I posted...people who I knew would not bark, snap, or snark at me...people who wouldn't tell me to lighten up or tell me I was overly sensitive. People who would not post things so awful, so mean, as to make my heart physically hurt. Sometimes, you just need space to process without feedback.

That being said, I'm not posting anything particularly personal on the new page. No pictures. There's no profile information, no lists of things I like. Just a fake name and some posts and shares about my fears for the future. And no blistering comments coming back at me, demeaning me for what I feel and believe. That's a relief.Sometimes, an opposing point of view, especially when it comes in the form of insults, is just not what's going to help.

So, yes, I set up an account and asked a few people to follow it with the explicit instruction that they could not jab at me, debate me, or express their disagreement. It's sort of a therapy thing. And it's working. When I'm finished with it, when I get out of it what I need to, I'll shut it down and go back to my regular Facebook account. Or not. I may check out of that piece of social media completely. It's not like people will change, it's not like Facebook won't keep showing everyone on my friends list every goddam thing I liked or commented on, thereby sharing my interactions with people I don't know, have no interest in hearing from, and who I never intended to be privy to my posts.

Once I feel better, I'll close the echo chamber, but for the moment, I simply don't have the energy to be judged and jabbed at for my beliefs and the work I do.

Self-preservation

I just unfriended everyone on Facebook. Technically. I deactivated my account. I couldn't take the fact that people I know and like turned out to be awful. They not only voted for Trump, they got sucked into a spiral of championing all of the hate, believing all of the lies, and embracing all of the vitriol and rhetoric that Trump called talking points.

When my sister-in-law posted something along the lines of "The reason Republicans are late to vote is because they are busy working," and implied that Democrats are lazy leeches who don't work, I snapped.

I've been putting in 70-hour weeks for some time now. I make the world a better place. I work my fucking ass off, I'm fiscally responsible, and I don't understand this mindset that being a registered Democrat means I somehow deserve deriding mockery.  I couldn't take it anymore. People are so glib to demean good, hard-working people without any thought about what they are really saying.

I feel like the last 18 months have been a gradual awakening for me. I will not be bullied or barked at by people who pretend to be friends. I've been gradually excising a few out of my life for months now, but today I decided to just cut deep and start over.

I'm sure some will be confused by this, not because they lack self-awareness, but because they lack self-honesty. They will claim they don't remember saying hurtful things or being unkind or being generous with their snark or being demeaning or disrespectful, but I've kept a tally.

This is how I live my life. I give people a chance to be decent. If they repeatedly fail, I simply...walk away.

It felt particularly good today.

Where has the time gone?

I write blog posts all day long, in my head. Sometimes, I start to really write them but I get distracted and those posts go unfinished. Today I was surprised to see that I had not published anything here since March. How can that be? I've written so much in my head!

Eight years on

Let's just take a moment to appreciate that I've been writing this blog, although sporadically, for almost nine years. Apparently, I can stick with something.

A few days ago, my back started to tingle, itch, and ache. It turned out to be nothing, but I was reminded that it was eight years ago this week that I first came down with shingles. My life has never been the same.

Since that first bout in 2008, I've had three recurrences. They were never as bad as the first time, but that's a relative statement. It was bad every time.

It doesn't seem like eight years have passed since the traumatic experience I had with shingles. So much has changed in my life. A lot hasn't.

It's not interesting enough to write about.

TMI

I feel like I have shared too much. In general. In every possible way.