In case you can't tell, I'm on vacation. Yes, that's a tree in my backyard. Yes, it's raining for the first time in at least 30 days. Yes, we are in the midst of a pandemic. Yes, I'm still on vacation.
Today I renewed my membership to SCBWI and Kansas Author's Club. See, I realized the thing I want to do during this time of world-wide crisis is finish the book I've been writing for years. Yet I'm scared. I want you to like it. I don't want your criticism. I know it will happen. Am I ready to hear the hate you'll throw at me? Maybe. Maybe it's worth the risk to tell my story. When I reach the tipping point of telling the story being more important than the criticism, it will be ready. Soon I hope.
Last night and this morning I was texting with friends and we agree-it feels like we are all waiting to see who survives. That we have reached the Covid tipping point and are over the edge of the world. It's too late to control, well, anything!
So why not? When you're at the end and just waiting, why not let it all hang out?
Pandemic: COVID-19 is crazy. I've read account from nurses who describe it as trying to shovel cement out of lungs. You don't know where it's at, what surface not to touch. My hands are raw from washing continuously. I don't leave the house much and when I do I'm beset with panic attacks. People are screaming at each other for not wearing a mask. Videos surface daily of adults throwing fits, pointing guns as each other, screaming obscenities either because they want someone to wear a mask or because they don't want to wear one themselves.
Plus, the Police keep shooting black people for no reason.
And that leads me directly to Trump.
I don't even know how to begin to describe what we are living through with Trump having been elected President of this great nation. My national pride has been questioned but yes, I still believe America is the greatest place on the planet. NOT because of capitalism, but because of guaranteed freedoms. Yet Trump is testing everything I thought this nation was about. Now I feel attacked if I open my mouth.
And worse than that, I'm a white woman who is middle aged so I get lumped into the "She voted for Trump," category automatically when the EXACT OPPOSITE is true. First world problems.
But I'll tell you something more scary-the US is fast on the way to becoming 2nd or 3rd world. And it's because of Trump, his followers, and their inability to consider any viewpoint not their own.
Listen, money is not everything. It's not. And if you voted for Trump and I pissed you off, I'm not surprised. But you don't count any more than I do. Trump and his flunkies could buy and sell your entire family. Even if you have a pool, a boat, a third residence. You don't matter to them.
But your life does matter to me.
And that's the difference I hope to make in this world.
Now, back to the vacation!
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