I’m not sure how you are feeling right about now, but I.Am.Over.It.
I’m over 2020.
I’m over COVID-19.
I’m over all of the 2020 events I was looking forward to being cancelled or switched to virtual.
I’m over racial discrimination and riots.
I’m over the never-ending election.
I’m over people hating on each other for their differing views.
And I’m over all the other weird stuff (Murder Hornets), natural disasters, unexpected deaths, and everything else this year has thrown at us.
I’m tired, and feel ready to give up. All of this? It’s EXHAUSTING.
I feel like I’m living in a perpetual state of doom, not knowing what’s going to come next. Hurricanes? Floods? Man-eating snakes popping out of the ground?
I’m done with feeling worried and concerned ALL THE TIME; wondering if my kids or my husband and I will contract COVID, despite all we are doing to stay safe. I hate feeling like my life is surrounded by uncertainty and confusion. No one knows what to do anymore; no one knows what is safe and what isn’t. We don’t know how long our kids will be attending school in person, or if they’ll get sent back home again due to yet another COVID spike.
I used to have a couple of safe online communities I could turn to in bad times that made me feel better, but even those have been infiltrated by the negativity this year has brought. That “safe zone” I thought I had on my very particular Instagram feed (where I only follow bookish accounts) changed with this election. Suddenly, people who NEVER posted about politics before were posting about it. And not just once, but over and over and over. So the place I used to turn to that would make me smile, is gone.
The news is completely off limits in our house. My anxiety and stress rises too much from watching it, and hearing over and over again the wreckage 2020 has brought our way. News of death, riots, hate, fraud, disaster…it’s all just to much to handle right now.
And I’m just over it. Over all of it.
But, do you know what makes me the most sad right now? What really hurts almost more than anything else? It’s the fact that when I look around, I see more hate and division than I do love and support.
Sure, I see good things pop up in my social media feed here and there. Neighbors helping neighbors, friends and family looking for ways to support each other. But most of what I see is quite the opposite. It’s downright hatefulness.
I have never seen an election divide people like this one did. There were posts on Facebook from people saying, “If you voted for _________, then you deserve to die.” When did we get to the point where we are telling people they deserve DEATH because they voted for someone different than we did?! When did we reach the point where our Democratic process is a joke because so much fraud occurred?
I wish I could say the election has been the only cause of the hatred I’ve seen this year, but it hasn’t. Someone please tell me why 145 years after the Civil War ended slavery in the U.S, and 55 years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s push for equality we are STILL struggling with racism in this country? How is it we can be so colorblind that we can’t see the PERSON beneath the skin?
I just don’t get it. And I’m over it.
Something needs to give. Something needs to change.
When things go wrong, when things get bad, that is when we need to support each other. That is when we need to lift each other up and say, “How can I help you today?” We should be standing in solidarity with each other instead of letting so much hate and division come between us.
Can you imagine if people actually listened to each other? I mean, REALLY LISTENED to someone else’s point of view. And, instead of getting mad and offended because they think or believe something different than you, we embraced those differences. What would the world be like if we came together in love and support instead of showing hatred towards others because they look different than we do? How would it feel to live in a world where you wouldn’t have to feel like you need to present yourself a certain way in order to avoid being berated for your beliefs?
Can you imagine it? It would certainly make hard times like we’ve been living in, seem easier to withstand.
But, sadly, I’m not sure I see that happening anytime soon. Not at all.
So instead, I’m going to continue to do what I have been; avoid the news, stay off social media as much as possible, focus on work and my family, and find those “little things” in each day that can make me smile.
Because as I said, I’m over it.
