There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re saying
It’s been a week and three days since the election of Donald J. Trump. I have spent many hours talking friends down from ledges. The country is in a turmoil like I cannot recall in my lifetime, at least from the perspective of someone who has so many friends shocked at the outcome of this election. We were told that Trump could not win. America was better than this. Guess what? We aren’t.
I’ve been trying to find the silver lining in this. Maybe Trump won’t be as bad as we think he’ll be. Maybe the country needed this wake-up call to remind us that we were not done on our journey forward and that, without vigilance, there are those who would take us back. Anything. I’m grasping at straws.
Today, I have a friend tell me that I should stop telling people to calm down, that we need to remain up in arms or get up in arms. Well, from my perspective, there’s no lack of people who have been shaken from slumber. I have friends who haven’t stopped crying, not because our side lost the election, but because the country lost and the 25% of us who voted for Trump don’t even know it. My friends on the right tell me that I am being bitter, that I need to accept the results of the election and get on board with President Trump. I need to give him a chance. I know that when I’m getting criticism from those on the left and those on the right, I’m somewhere close to where I need to be.
Maybe my looking for the silver lining is a coping mechanism. Well, not maybe, it is a coping mechanism. There is nothing I can do about Trump being President. He’s going to be President for four years. And, should something happen to him- like impeachment or him just quitting, we have Mike Pence to look forward to. There is no escaping this for at least four years. I say, save your outrage, don’t spend it all at once. There will be plenty to be outraged about in the next almost 1,600 days.
I can’t take on any more pain, sorry, sadness or disappointment right now. I’ll stay engaged. I can’t help that. That is who I am. But, emotionally, I’ve got to shut it down. Like the character Pink. in the movie The Wall, I’ve reached my fill. I have become comfortably numb.
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I’ve got that feeling once again
I can’t explain you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become comfortably numb
