Most days look very similar, similar in all good ways, in ways I am grateful for.  But there are some days, and they come two or three at a time, where there is nothing I can do but lie still. Succumb to inertia. Resisting the overwhelming fatigue and mental weariness is hard, and I gave up trying. I know what this is, and it will pass.  Lucky girl to have that time and space.

When it passes I am up and outside before sunrise, before the people come. In the dawn light, I am looking for unusual shapes in the sand, in the water.  I wonder how many days until the water becomes warm.  Lament for the two humpbacks that died this week, victims of cargo traffic.

Today has been an awake day, a day that I can think critically while driving to the grocery store and stock my fridge with good things, what a lucky girl I am.  Meanwhile, that mental chatter  starts to drag me down. The Virginia House voted to defund Planned Parenthood.  There are FIVE in the entire state.  Without state funding, they all might have to close.  Executive orders that are on track to undo all the good progress that was made on so many fronts. Everybody will buy from Big Ears Oil Co, right? Russia decriminalizes domestic “abuse,” but it was just a slap for Pitr’s sake. Feminism took away a man’s right to rape his wife, says the manosphere.  Sarah Palin wants us to pray for our leaders, but what if I don’t believe God gives one rats ass about the politics of man?  Murdering minority Muslims in Myanmar today, what am I being cute with some alliteration? And why do I care, anyway, when our homeless veterans need help?  Peaceful demonstrations are interrupted by left-wingnut terrorists. Presidential advisers are preparing for the Fourth Turning like it’s predestined, and I just fucking give up.  After all the phone calls and postcards and hoping, I just give up. I can’t keep up with what’s coming.  I’m done.  I’m going to take the George Carlin pill and say that the Earth wanted plastic, anyway, why bother caring?   I’ve a happy life. I should just focus on sunshine and waves.

I am ready to descend, lead weights dangling from each and every vertebra and my eyelids, to my couch and just not give one fuck. I got books, I got water, I got wine, I got a cement bunker over my head and neighbors I can occupy space with, what the fuck more do I want?

But what if I could make a difference, no matter how small?  What if I could be one voice that helped somebody else? Maybe it won’t heal the whole world, but at least I could say I did something. I tried. To help someone else believe that they matter.

I’m ready.  Are you?