I hate this time of year. The already difficult task of navigating traffic in this swollen city rises to ridiculousness and shopping of any kind becomes a competitive sport.
I hate sports.
Our consumer driven society ramps up to a feverish pitch and from every possible angle we are pressured to buy more, spend more, do more, donate more. Given the state of the nation right now that’s enough to drive a woman to shoot her kids & herself. In a welfare office. No really, it is.
The nights are long and the days are short. It’s cold. It’s wet. It is, all together, a recipe for depression. Or homicide. No really, it is.
I am tired. I am stressed. And yet, in the middle of all the madness around us, yes madness, I realize that my stress is just a small stress. A sneeze. A minor symptom of the larger illness that has taken hold of this nation.
It is 7 pm. I have been working over time at my job as much as possible over the past 3 weeks. I am working for our family. My Beloved has been attending school at night for weeks now and is currently holding a 4.0 GPA. He is working for our family. The sad irony of that is we are apart more than we are together.
And when we go home each night we sit together on the couch, in our little living room, in the house that our Friend has so graciously welcomed us into and comfort each other by the light of our Yule tree. We talk about the madness & shake our heads & hold hands. And we keep working for our family.
Our friends & family have fed us, clothed us, put a roof over our heads and helped us many times over without question or hesitation. We do the same for them. That’s not charity. That’s looking out for your people. That’s pitching in for the good of those you care about. That is Love in its very basic form. Someone smiles, you smile back. Someone falls, you help them up. Someone is hungry, you feed them.
I don’t understand greed. I don’t understand why this has to be so hard. I don’t understand why I can’t get health insurance and why my husband can’t get work. I don’t understand why some of the men & women of my country are still being sent overseas to fight an imaginary war and still others are here fighting a different imaginary war in their own backyards.
But I do understand Love. That is why I keep working, keep pushing, keep trying, keep going. For the Love of my family.
I love you too.
Come, be a part of my family. Work with me. We could change the World together.
While madness seems to hold sway on the Grand Stage, I have to believe that, between individuals on a smaller scale, Love must conquer all, even in the face of really bad shit. If it were not so, the suicide rate would be much higher.
Well put, Cootie.