Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

We Only Fail When We Do Not Try

That title above, those words, met my ears only one minute ago while watching another episode of Call The Midwife on Netflix.  And in those seven words, I found my way here to type what has been tangled in my brain for a while now.  

There is so much not trying in this country.  

Not trying to understand.  Not trying to help.  Not trying to improve.  Not trying to protect.  Not trying to see through our notions, both preconceived and fully born.  Not trying to stay informed.

And in all of that not trying, we are succeeding at one thing in spectacular fashion - we are failing each other.

While road tripping with my mother for ten days earlier this month, we had mile after mile to converse, laugh, listen to the oldies, reminisce about my father, daydream about upcoming festivities, and of course, speak on current events.  I say of course because, well, me.  If you are trapped in a car with me for thousands of miles and think the world and its turning won't come up, you have not been paying attention.

Information is power.  Like gas, electric, solar, or wind, knowledge is a force all its own.  It moves us along as a society, discovering medical progress, deciphering illness and disease, creating the latest technological leaps forwards, connecting us.  As individuals, information is how we stay vital, capable, compassionate, connected, whole. 

But it is in the absence of information, the turning away from news and events, the dereliction of duty, as it were, in terms of knowing, that damage is easily wrought.  It is how vile, corrupt people make their way into positions of power.  How targets are easily placed on entire groups of people.  How rights are eroded, threatened, stripped away.  It is how people are harmed, how people die.

It was after one too many replies of "I didn't know that" from my mother that I found myself pounding the steering wheel in frustration.  "You're a smart woman!  You need to know these things! You need to pay attention!"

That outburst came as we were discussing the tsunami of legislation playing out in state after state against bodily autonomy, against voting rights, against the LGBTQIA, against her grandson.

Especially against her grandson.  

And there was just so much she did not know because she simply has not been paying any attention.  She loves her grandson without condition, but in this regard she has been failing.  It has made me keep wondering how many others are failing, too?

I know the news is rife with heartache and disappointment and traumas and bloodshed.  And in that, I know there is every reason to want to just shut it all out, to look away, to not pay attention, to not try to stay informed.  But it is in the turning away, in the not knowing, that you may well be failing.

Failing at citizenship when you consider yourself patriotic.  Failing at support, when you consider yourself a giver.  Failing at advocacy, when you consider yourself an ally.

I am here begging you to turn back around.

Something does not have to personally affect you in order that you should care.  I offer up the letter T on the beautiful LGBTQIA spectrum for your consideration.

My son is transgender.  And while he is miles down the road of his transition, his well being, his safety, his rights as a citizen are being threatened daily across this country.  You should know that.  And if you are the ally you believe yourself to be, you should care, you should be paying attention, you should be galvanized.

I have often wondered, since I sat at this keyboard 6 years ago and wrote the words that let the world into our family's story about his transition, how sharing his story, our story, may have helped change or color your perception of the word transgender.  What had you thought it meant?  What was your reaction to seeing the word, hearing it out loud?  Had you ever thought about it at all?  

I do not ask that with judgment, but with sincerity.  Did finally "knowing" someone alter what you thought you thought?

I ask because at the time Caitlyn Jenner's story had been playing out in the media for roughly a year, so it was not a foreign word or concept.  And while Caitlyn has proved a poor advocate for the very community to which she belongs, her transition did push the dialogue forward.  (That she is now willingly being used as a spokesperson pawn on FOX simply speaks to the wealth and celebrity which shield her from any of the real world pain, fears, and traumas of a non-famous transgender person.)

Toby's transition is not unique.  Therapy, HRT, surgery.  What is unique is the fact that he came out to a family that did not blink, only moved closer towards him, forward with him.  So many young people are not so fortunate.  But we could no more stop loving him than we could stop breathing.  He is part of how we breath, as are his siblings.  Toby, as a human being, is not unique.  He laughs, cries, breathes, eats, watches bad TV, goes grocery shopping, has pets, friends, hobbies, and loves just as anyone else.  What is unique is that he has to navigate a minefield.  Because all those normal things we take for granted?  He is ever mindful that there are not only citizens out to harm him, but people in power who would see him "beaten up" - looking at you, Marjorie Taylor-Greene - or believe "it's creepy" - fuck off, Ron Johnson.  

That politicians have gotten so brazen at the microphones as they play to their bigot bases speaks to the ease with which legislation is being passed and signed into law against the transgender community.  I know there are millions upon millions of people who believe themselves to be allies in this country, but millions upon millions are not making their voices heard for those they swear to advocate for.

And it is in that not trying that we are failing.

Texas has passed legislation criminalizing parents who help their transgender children with medical support.  And let me be clear here - NO CHILD IS RECEIVING SURGERY.  IT IS A MADE UP SACK OF LIES PEDDLED BY THE GOP TO PEOPLE WHO DON'T CARE TO KNOW BETTER, TO KNOW FACTS.  Do children receive puberty blockers?  Yes.  In coordination with doctors and therapists who help guide caring parents and their transgender children.  Putting off puberty, in which a child's body begins to grow and betray who they know themselves to be, is, in so many cases, lifesaving.

Arizona's governor has anti transgender bills waiting to be signed on his desk.  Targeting sports and surgeries.  "Solutions" to problems that do not exist.  But they sure do galvanize the easily led horde of ignorant bigots.

And Arizona is only 1 of twenty states with laws like this winding their way through legislatures as the Republicans have rabidly grabbed the issue as the latest wedge they can use to gin up fear and righteous indignation among their base.  Alabama has passed transgender targeted laws as of last week outlawing puberty blockers, the ability to play sports, and use the bathroom that corresponds to the child's gender.

Let's pause for a moment and just visit the bathroom issue.  This gets conservative knickers in a wad on the daily.  

It was only a few years back that the bruhaha over transgender people in bathrooms became an issue - remember the "boycott" of Target by bigots horrified that Target supported transgender folks?  Given the torrent of media attention, targeting of trans people, and the hue and cry of the GOP, you would have thought transgender people had just been beamed down to Earth from a spaceship, never having inhabited the planet before.  The reality is you have been peeing and pooping in public restrooms alongside transgender people all your lives.  You know why you didn't know?

Because no politician deemed it a shiny thing with which to gain your attention and harness your fears.  It is a made up issue.

Transgender people are not laying in wait in public bathrooms, lurking to accost you or molest your children.  They are in there, behind a stall door, peeing or pooping as fast as is humanly possible, so they may get out safely.  Yes, that's right.  THEY are afraid of YOU.  YOU are the X factor.  YOU are the danger.  YOU represent the potential to end up injured or killed.

Let that sink in.  Even if you are an ally, YOU scare my son.  Because you look like any other person, which means you look like any other bigot.  And if you can't clock my son as transgender, do you think he can clock you as a safe space?  Sorry, but you are not getting the benefit of the doubt when he knows his life is constantly in danger.

Bathrooms are not an issue.  Period.  Stop being played and flush the bullshit away.

Sports have become a hot button as well.  Just stop.  For young children, sports are socialization, team building, camaraderie.  As they get older, they are outlets, safe spaces, places where goals can be set, strived for, attained, where acceptance thrives.  If a student is talented enough to move into collegiate sports, they have busted their asses for at least 15 years to get to that point.  Being transgender does not change it.  If anything, it hamstrings it.  The NCAA has rules and hormone level monitoring in place.  And stop pointing at swimmer Lia Thomas to prop up your "argument" against transgender people in sports competitions.  Yes, Lia is tall and muscled.  But as soon as Lia began HRT, she lost muscle, strength, recovery took longer.  And she was required to be on HRT for a full year before being allowed to compete.

As for her height, build?  Um, check out the women who play in the WNBA.  Tall, strong, muscled, talented.  Do you have a problem with them?  Didn't think so.

But back to the legislation.  Twenty states.  Did you know that?  My Mom did not.  She did not know that there were politicians openly advocating beating up my son.  That in Texas a former teacher running for office openly complained about not being allowed to let her students laugh at transgender pupils.  Or Robert Foster, a former Republican representative who openly stated on Twitter that anyone who supports transgender people should be "lined up against (a) wall before a firing squad to be sent to an early judgment.”

I stress the word openly because it matters.  My son is loved, accepted by his friends and family, but with every utterance like those, every vile tweet, every piece of targeted legislation, he feels it.  Deeply.  And from where he sits, no one cares.  No one is challenging these people, their actions, their violent stances, their brazen targeting of him and anyone like him.  Yes, the ACLU immediately steps in to file suit when these things are signed into law, but the reason these things get this far is because not enough people are paying attention, staying informed, and making their voices heard, and heard loudly.

It's happening with abortion.  Reproductive rights are being slowly erased state by state.  Did you know that?  It does not matter if you are done having kids, never want to have kids, or are personally aggrieved at the thought of abortion.  This is about bodily autonomy.  It is about having a say in what medical procedures you choose.  As I told my Mom, who is opposed to abortion, it doesn't matter.  Her personal or religious feelings about the matter extend only to herself.  If I cannot force her to have an abortion, she cannot force someone else to not have one.  It would have been no different if when my father were dealing with Parkinson's that a Christian Scientist inserted themselves in between him, my mother, and his doctors, denying him medication to improve his life.  Or denying my sister the chemo she needed to fight her breast cancer.  If their deeply held beliefs could not step into those scenarios, why should hers be allowed to step into someone else's intensely personal medical discussions and decisions about abortion?

Look, we are all tired, beaten down by four years of a venal, vengeful presiduncy, three years of an isolating, deadly pandemic.  But it is our collective ennui that is being relied upon by opportunistic, hateful, power hungry politicians and religious zealots to pass their agendas.

We fail only when we do not try.

My son is transgender.  I have two daughters.  I implore you, pay attention, stay informed, try.  For them.  For me.  And ultimately, for you.  If my almost 80 year old mother can make that promise, that commitment, I know you can, too.

Trapped In The Inhale

For some time now I have been tossing, turning, struggling, a little lost, a lot lost.  Life, family, ups, downs, worries, joys, all of it.  Like so many of you also experience, one day still bleeds into the next with COVID, international news, local strife, and deeply personal struggles dominating every waking moment.  The waking moments so fraught, so full of the potential to be bad, that I find myself clock watching, eager for another bedtime to roll round, if only to escape for a brief period into the jumbled bliss(?) of sleep.

I sit at my desk a lot and watch my hummingbirds. They have become a metaphor for life of late.  Fluttering, wings constantly in motion, one place to the other and back again.  I marvel at their speed, their singlemindedness, their purpose - find the sugar water, drink the sugar water, swallow, rinse, repeat.  Try to avoid becoming prey in the process.

As I sit here, I have been going back through DGMS posts, seeing where we were a year ago, two years ago, three years ago when our routines got swept away, when uncertainty replaced the boredom of the everyday, when life became more precious as death began to circle ever closer.

I was rereading a post from last year around this time and much of it resonated deeply with me.  So if you recognize a portion, or a  turn of phrase echoes, know that I pulled some directly today as I write...

I have spent the past five months in "quiet" trying to muddle through things.

I warn you now this post may ramble and meander.  It is personal, to be sure, yet may stray into the global, the political, the virus.  I beg your indulgence as it may also stray into your feelings, feelings that have made you feel adrift or frozen in place, too.

Quiet, for some moments there are no words.  That has been a long running joke with my kids.  A line spoken, often with a finger placed to the speaker's mouth.  A line meant to be funny, a line that often is.  A line intended to let the funny just play out without the help of additional words.  

Lately, the line has circled my brain nonstop.  A brain that is usually at the ready to sit at the keyboard and eviscerate, to double entendre, to make up new words, to provoke thought, to incite laughter, to incite rage.  A brain that sometimes just has to have the outlet of writing - an act akin to vomiting on said keyboard.  That so many come here to feel validated, less alone in your thoughts, see your muddled feelings translated into rants - it has always been humbling.  Yet when the words won't come, when one day passes into the next, and no words find their way into this space - it becomes a personal shit spiral of sorts.

That's where my words have been trapped of late.  And I appreciate the private messages and emails asking if everything is ok, where I have gone, etc.  It's nice to be missed.

There is certainly no lack of things on which to expound.  The world is a big crapfest of news on the hour.  But sometimes, there is just too much from which to choose.  And I cannot.  And as one day has blended into the next, I keep reminding myself that while my personal struggles are holding me hostage, we all continue to live through unprecedented times.  That no man or woman is an island, despite all of us being forcibly islanded by this pandemic.  And make no mistake, this pandemic is still ongoing.  A new variant, even more easily transmissible is beginning its wave through the populace.  It does not matter if you have pissed and moaned about it for three years; it cares not whether you believe in it or not; and it certainly does not care about your boredom factor with it.  It was, and continues to be, an extinction event.  

Extinction event.

Those two words are harsh, but we are still in the thick of COVID and, as our selfish behaviors are allowing COVID to continue to spread and kill, harsh words are still necessary.  Our country alone has lost 1,014,114 people.  Globally, the world has subtracted 6,215,966 lives.  The United States accounts for over 16% of deaths to COVID-19.  Because we are selfish pricks, too self important to be inconvenienced by a swatch of cloth across our faces, too filled with certitude in our own health to bother getting vaccinated or boosted, or boosted again, and far too many far too willing to believe that the vaccine contains Satan sperm - no, I am not making that up.  That is the latest mental bullshit being peddled and believed by the weak minded.

These same simpletons who believe themselves to be infectious disease specialists because they belong to a FB group are now also international relations / war experts because they read The Federalist.  Ukraine is not real to them, as their simplistic nuke-em-all grandiosity reveals.  They could not label it on a map.  They have no understanding of what could happen, why we cannot just throw up a nuclear warhead.  Like so many Russians, they, too, are only informed by those with seriously vested interests in keeping them in the dark, stupid, scared - in Russia, Putin controls the information, for our own cadre of dullards, it is FOX.

With so much going on externally, matched by that which roils inside, it is hard to not feel weak.

I do not like feeling weak.  I hate it.  I suck at it.  I am a person who can forgive everything in another person, yet cannot do the same for myself.  And that is where I have been floating.  That is where the quiet has had me trapped.  No matter how self assured I come off in this space, no matter how wonderful my life looks from the outside, no matter how strong my track record has been for handling adversity - I am no different than you.  I am made of the same fears, insecurities, doubts, and stumbles.

Frozen.  I used this word to describe to a friend how I have felt.  She got it.  Instantly.  It was not a long message thread - it did not need to be.  It took only a few lines of admission and understanding to immediately feel seen, less alone, validated.  

Which is what finally got me to sit down here today.  Maybe you are feeling the same.  Spinning in place.  Knowing there are things to do, get done, yet they stay untouched day after day.  Maybe you are frozen, too.  It's ok.  With all apologies to Elsa, letting it go is easier sung than done. I keep thinking about how things look on the surface.  The whole iceberg theory of what we see vs the enormity of what lies beneath.  The Titanic was not sent to the ocean floor by what passengers could see above the water line.  The devastation took place below.

We are all functioning.  Going through the motions of our lives.  And that makes it look, to others, that we have our shit together, that we are winning this battle, our every battle.  And maybe we are on a day here and there.  But right now, it is more likely that we are treading water, breathing in fear, exhaling uncertainty, and exhausted.  And on those days if the most we can do is get dressed, fix our hair, and feed ourselves - THAT IS OK.  Some days, good enough is good enough.   

In my life, there is much good, excitement, things in the calendar to chart a course towards, but even with them, I feel caught in the inhale because there is so much uncertainty, strain, helplessness as well.  The phone rings at the wrong time of the day, and my heart stops.  Too many pieces of carpet beneath me, any of which could be yanked at any time.

Still processing my father's passing in November, I am now juggling the three remaining older people in my life - worried about their every breath, their cognition, how to plan, to gently push them towards what is in their best interests.  I am so mindful that autonomy means the world to me, and that stripping away even a layer from someone else is more than unsettling to them.  But when push comes to love, sometimes there just is no other choice, sometimes there just are no choices to be left in their hands.

I have estranged family members, evicted from my life for hard and fast reasons long ago, who have been forced back into the tiniest of crevice because of Dad's passing.  I do not wish them ill, I never have.  I just do not wish them to be in my life, or in that of my precious family.  I have one who is quickly heading to the jail cell or the grave - deceit, fraud, drugs, you name it.  And were it not for my mother's involvement in that son's life, I would keep my back completely turned, protecting my family.  But seeing how he affects her, how even a text message erodes the soil beneath her feet, I cannot completely step away.  She is vulnerable - not only because my father's passing is still a gaping hole in her life, but because she is a mother, and it has to be pure anguish to see one of your children, adult though he may be, turned into such a toxic waste of a human being.   My recent road trip with her, to see two of my daughters, was marred by the intrusion of him on multiple occasions - extorting money, attention, peddling lie after lie after lie. 

To say I am overflowing with anger in that arena is an understatement. 

I live in fear of the phone ringing because others in our lives are facing health struggles and adjustments, and we sit so many states away.  I want to exhale, I do.  Yet here I sit, trapped in the inhale of life.  I know so many of you get where I am at, what I am trying to translate. 

Our panic, our anger, our helplessness are all part and parcel of what makes us such an amazing species to begin with.  We are complex.  Our brains still a largely uncharted wonderland.  Our brains completely in charge of how we are functioning through this crisis.  Adrenaline, cortisol, imagination, daydreams, dream dreams, nightmares - the quantifiable and the ethereal - all working to manage us across these waves and eventually to safe harbor.

Am I rambling?  Sure.  But if you see yourself in this, keep going.

Superfluous and vanity laden as it may seem, there is a collective struggle in this regard as well:  we have gained weight - as much physically as emotionally, especially in the past three COVID laden years.  And even though working out may be part of your regimen, as it is mine, that weight refuses to budge much if at all.  Again, it's because our bodies, our brains are in charge.  They are protecting us from this very real threat.  Your brain perceives the collective trauma and is acting as it was designed.  So forgive yourself the extra padding.  Buy new pants if that is needed.  And for God's sake, eat the damned ice cream if it makes you feel happy.  

Maybe for you, this time, your struggles and fears, translate to tears always standing at the ready, threatening to fall over the next detergent commercial.  Let them.  Tears are an emotional release of the most wondrous kind.  This morning, while still in bed and scrolling Instagram, I watched a "first look" -  groom seeing bride - and dissolved.  I was that country song brought to life, "I have tears in my ears from lying on my back crying over you."  I lay there letting them come, sobbing, until the wave passed.  

Crying over strangers.  Well, that was my first thought.  The reality is those people were just the catalyst for tears that have been waiting to fall, attached to my every emotion over so many people in my life.  And when I finally emerged from my bed, I was better for the liquid exodus.

Perhaps you have availed yourself of therapy to help work through this ongoing period of uncertainty, through your own personal hurdles.  GOOD.  I say that in caps because the stigma of even slightly wobbly mental health needs eradicated.  Quite frankly we could all do with a therapist on our side, ready to listen, help us sort through our thoughts.  If you broke your leg, you would not hide it and try to just get on with things, correct?  Your mental health is no different.  And there is no shame in that.

I think often about the now 1,014,114 families who have lost someone to this virus.  The horror of the loss, the unfinished way in which so many goodbyes have had to play out, the fears that must linger in their minds at even the slightest cough in another loved one.  Then I watch as state after state encourages its citizens to now act like COVID has magically gone away.  It hasn't.  And with each passing day we are advised of the latest variant on the loose.

We are still mired in this pandemic.  If you have been vaccinated - that is great.  Boosted?  Even better.  Double boosted?  I'm proud of you.  I got my second booster yesterday, and despite the flu-y feeling and an arm with pain that is akin to being side swiped by a semi truck, I am so thankful it is available.  Yet it does not mean you will find me cavorting unmasked anytime soon.  There is no certain Get Out Of COVID Free card.  If anything, my multiple doses mean I must now stand as the best example of how to continue to be cautious, protecting others.  

As I sit here watching my hummingbirds, my thoughts also turn to the people of Ukraine.  A democracy fighting for its life, apartment buildings demolished, concert halls and cul-de-sacs destroyed, school plays never to be seen, weddings planned and abandoned, babies being born into turmoil.  People exactly like you and I, torn from their homes, atrocities committed against them, lives never to be fully lived.  The feelings of helplessness for them shares space with the feelings of thanks (and guilt) that I can sit here safely watching my tiny birds feast on sugar water.

As I type this meandering post, I am feeling a thaw of sorts, and for that I am glad.  I am feeling the rage, the fear, the uncertainty that has sat silent for weeks and months, feeling it finally work its way to the surface, to the keyboard.

I am angry.  I am.  I am scared.  I am.  I also know joy and love.  I do.  And in the midst of my own challenges, I remind myself that there are so many like me, like you - honest, decent, forward looking, open hearted, open minded people.  We outnumber the racist, bigoted, lunatic, conspiracy loving, warmongering horde.  We wear our masks and get our shots because we want to protect ourselves and our loved ones, but also because we want to do our part in the societal contract.  We believe in the societal contract.  That so many others are selfish, self absorbed, hate filled, hubris laden, intellectually famined wastelands only adds to the burden we carry.  Like my abhorrent sibling, they cannot be reasoned with.  We must simply attempt to secure the safety of ourselves and those we love, and watch as the inevitable wreckage occurs. 

For some moments there are no words.  That moment is not now.  And as I sit here typing, finally feeling it all, freeing it all, unfreezing it all - with all apologies to my poor keyboard - it feels good.  

We are all still living through a shared trauma.  On so many levels.  And we all have personal burdens carried deep within, quietly facing them daily.  But I am not alone.  And neither are you. We are trapped in the inhale together.  Feel that.