11/10/16

I don't know where we go from here.

It's forty-eight hours after this goddamned election. Words, feelings, and plans for the future are still half-formed. A dam in my head has been erected, and there's this phantom limb feeling that it should be ready to burst.

We, as a nation, are not lost - not yet - but we have lost something. Most likely, for good. And I won't lay blame for that loss on anyone's feet - there's enough blame to go around. I didn't do enough. We didn't do enough to say, "No. This isn't normal. This isn't right. This is not who we are."

Guess what? This is who we are. We're talkers, not listeners. We're winners. We feel like we have the right to be right all the time. This is who we are, and I don't know where we go from here.

I know where I need to go, what I need to do - at least in some small part. I need to write. Something I don't do enough. It's probably the only thing I'm good at it... and it's something I hate doing. I hate it because the "you suck" voice in my head - a voice I can usually tune out - gets cranked to eleven. And it keeps getting louder the more I do it. Better to keep that voice quiet, I usually tell myself.

I'm beginning to understand how limiting, how damaging, that voice is. It goes through a lot of our heads. More than you probably think. And that voice may even be the reason we elected this monster of a man as our next president. And I bet you good money that tonight, as he tweets about how unfair it is that people are in the streets protesting his electoral win, there's a voice in his ruined head that sounds like daddy. And even now daddy's screaming, "You're a failure. You're a failure."

But enough of that shit. At least for now. It's time for all of us to do something - anything - that helps give the middle finger to the darkness that surrounds us. For me, that's writing. Thanks to everyone who's reading this now or plans to keep coming back. I imagine most of you will be people I know only through Twitter. So let me say now how grateful I am to have you in my life. Even before this awful time, you've made me laugh and see the good in this world. For that, I'm eternally grateful. I hope I've made you laugh, as well - and see things from a slightly different angle. I'm so glad you listened. And I want to hear what you have to say, now more than ever.

I'm not sure what good it will do, but it's time to resume this blog. A few hundred words a day about one geek and his geek obsessions.It's something. And something is better than nothing.

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