Playing for Time

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Everybody who’s still awake and keeping track of such things knows we did finally make it through all 365 days of January, only to find that February had decided to follow that same template. Thus we find ourselves not even halfway through the month when New Year’s Eve was eons ago, how does that work?

Journey will forever exhort us “(To NOT) Stop Believin'” but I confess that my inner Pollyanna finally sat down last week and thought briefly about hanging up the fight, letting it all crumble around me, and quitting all the stupid caring so much. Journey, as they say, would be so disappointed in me.

It’s been a slog any way we want to look at it, while at the same time parts of society are coming unraveled at warp speed. Every day I think about writing something in this space, and every day I wander off again without having typed a single word because where, really, does one even start? Some things are both too ridiculous and too true for words. So just to keep the lines open between you and me, and to preserve a thread of history as it happens, I’m resorting to sign language again to help me say what I can’t say. If our (the country’s) history becomes as disposable and ephemeral as a thread, at least I will have given it a small shot at preservation. And maybe we’ll both feel better for a little while. I know I could use the therapy.

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It was a really good dream.

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Let’s just say it. We’re in a dark place, a place we’ve never been before. Something will eventually happen to set our future course, and at some point one side or the other in the conflict will “win.” It’s yet to be determined just how all of that will happen and what a victory might look like, but somebody always gets declared winner. And so far, through every similar conflict, the planet has survived. Stay tuned, we haven’t seen the hard parts of this one yet.

Just as in the Civil War but without as much firepower so far, we’re brother against brother again, neighbor against neighbor. Uncle Ralph at Christmas dinner against the rest of the clan. E’erbody against e’erbody, just mix it up and get it over with. Sounds like a relief but I do not think it means what we think it means.

Put this in present tense and here we are:

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

A hard thing about life is that we have trouble hearing each other. It’s a universal problem, unique to the human race. The animal kingdom has no such problem, they can hear and locate each other through anything. It’s beyond impressive. I have opinions as to why we can’t manage some of that, but I’ll spare us all for today.

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A thing this era is teaching me is how truly hard genuine communication is, for all the reasons, and that some people honestly can’t hear us… just as we aren’t hearing them. The filters are invisible but industrial-strength and hard to break through. Choices available to us include playing dumb, trying to listen, deciding not to care, growing a hard heart, feeling stupid, feeling like we’ve lost the plot, wondering where it all went south, wondering if relationships and the world in general will ever feel real again. If you have others, share them here in comments! None of it feels GOOD.

In closing, dearly beloved, let me just quote my grandma: “This too shall pass.” Knowing exactly when and how would help immensely, but since we’re not privy to that information we can only do that thing where you hang in and hope for the best. Glad I could be of help, call again any time, I’m in the book.

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I promise you this is true.

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Grateful for you on Valentine’s Day…

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