These days, I haven’t been writing much, as there’s too much going on in the world and it’s become impossible to find any kind of focus. I miss the benefit of clearing my head and in the midst of a global pandemic, my head desperately needs to be cleared. With that in mind, I’d like to take time to purge my brain of months of anxious thoughts, worries and anger. It’s my goal to find a little time each night to write. I don’t plan on being entirely focused or sensical, so bear with me.
There are so many words and phrases that have become synonymous with the pandemic. These are all words and phrases I would be happy to never hear again in my lifetime. Unprecedented. New Normal. Uncertainty. Challenging times. “So everything sucks now,” is the phrase I think best encompasses it all. Wonder why that one hasn’t caught on. Because, really, everything sucks now. I often feel like all the things that ever regularly brought us joy have abruptly disappeared. One thing I’ve learned about global pandemics is they have a way of sucking the joy right out of life, or sucking the life right out of you. Living a joyless life is much preferred to death itself . . . I think. I try to keep that in mind each day while wading through the avalanche of shit and bad news that has become everyday life.
When I begin to feel particularly down—basically whenever I’ve caught up on the most recent news headlines regarding our government’s shitshow of a pandemic response or the newest most egregious racist act committed by some dumbfuck—I try my hardest to keep things in perspective and be grateful for what we have. I know other families have it so much worse than my own. This then leads to feeling guilty about my whining, but I guess guilt is better than feeling sorry for myself. I’m just afraid of saying, “well, it could always be worse,” as it has become a self fulfilling prophecy these days. It’s all about perspective. Perspective . . . and trying to focus on the things within my control. Perspective and control seem important for getting through this. Yet, in my darkest moments, I worry that there is no “through this,” and there will be no actual end to the pandemic. And then I just say fuck.
It’s been argued that Donald Trump is just a symptom of America's problems and not the root of all evil like many of us believe. While this may hold some truth, it does not stop me from feeling more hate than I ever thought possible toward another human being. In fact, if I contract Covid and end up in the ICU, I plan to focus my will to live on my incredibly strong desire to outlive that mother fucker, my incredible desire to bear witness to his death. Surely, this desire would work much better than hydroxychloroquine or drinking a shot of Clorox. I so badly want to have the chance to piss on his grave, though sadly I imagine the logistics of this act would be tricky. But ooooh, the satisfaction of doing it would be so grand. Bonus—I imagine you could sell tickets and raise an awful lot of money for a chance to piss on Donald J. Trump’s grave. Now that’s the kind of economic recovery measure I’m all about.
