I didn’t want to write this essay but know that I must.  Like many of my other essays in my recently published book, the ideas organically emanated about issues that were important to me.  They just sat there, lounging in my subconscious, repressed by the numbing effects of, well, a lifetime of self-medicating consumption, of feeding the ego and other exercises in self gratification.  

This essay feels like shattering the superficiality of my previous self-explorations that I promised to share but, then, instead, hid behind a cloak of quasi-intellectual musings.  All the while, this issue hung around, waiting for me to get deep enough to really look inside myself.

See, last Wednesday, I couldn’t stop crying.  I tried but couldn’t stop. I couldn’t figure out entirely why I was crying so hard and where it came from.   

It started innocently enough.  I turned on the news while having coffee.  Yes.  Mistake #1. 

No.  Not the coffee.

I wanted to see the certification of the election results.  I casually listened some of the typical bluster from the politicians who were bent on giving a history lesson to show how smart they are for the television viewing audience while advocating their perspective.  

Then, I remember watching the inimitable, Ted Cruz as he suggested an inane proposition for a commission justified by a misappropriating the importance of a poll about voters believing the election was rigged; while the split screen showed thousands of Trump supporters adorned in a mishmash of Red Hats and Hunting Outfits leaving a nearby rally after being encouraged by President Trump to take back our country.  They were following a huge American flag being carried overhead by the crowd as they  headed toward the Capitol Building.  

I remember thinking, Ugh Oh, here comes trouble.  I think that is when I started crying.

The next few hours were Twilight Zone/Mad Max sort of stuff.  I purposely switched back and forth between Fox and CNN to be sure my blown mind was verified by normally opposing platforms. I continued crying by myself.  

All alone. 

I was just crying for our country and the attendant pandemonium. Or, so I thought.

I don’t need to recreate what you have undoubtedly already seen as the insurrection descended into total anarchy as police just stood by and watched.  Both channels were essentially sharing the same news but with some semantic differences.  

“Traitors. Mob. Treason. Coup. Insurrection,” says one.

“Patriots, Protestors. Our House. Trump Supporters,” says the other.

I didn’t go outside all day.  I waited for 6 pm – the announced curfew.  I watched as it came and went.

I watched the people, referenced above, mingle, take selfies, and otherwise wait for provocation or direction.

Eventually, I took medication and went to sleep.  Apparently, eventually the area was cleared, and the senate certified the vote.  Some were even chastened by what happened.  

But, not too many, not for long.  

Because, they say, this is a time to come together and heal instead of it being a time for accountability.  

I wish I thought the same when I imagined my shoe on the other foot.

Over the past few days, I have diverted my attention with some writing and other self-serving, activities.  I even wrote about the communication strategies that were employed by senators (Cruz in particular) to justify their narratives.

So, I was processing my unnatural, guttural anguish bit by bit.  But I don’t think that I absorbed it until the urge came for me to sit down and write this essay.

Now, here I am, crying again.  These tears come from a deep well within me and spew according to their own agenda, often arriving without notice.  “But, wait, I am a man.  Suck it up!”, I think to myself.

But these are more than tears for our country.  These are tears of loneliness and desperation. Tears of everything spinning out of control.

Fucking Coronavirus.  Fucking Pandemic.  Fucking Trump, Fucking everyone repeatedly.  Fucking stupid people buying his Fucking bullshit!

What do we do now?  

Keep waiting on pins and needles each day while he toys with our democracy?

Watch the far-right, conservative, spineless republicans slowly crawl back into his cave because they fear his wrath empowered by his 70 million+ sycophants?  If so, then, nothing really changes.

I wish he would just go away.  I wish Coronavirus would go away.

Last year, I wrote a book about Personal Transformation.  Yes, I did.  So, what.

You know what?  I gained about 25 lbs.  I am isolated from friends and family.  I reinjured my back.  I can’t exercise like I want to, so I just don’t do it.

I often feel sorry for myself.

I hate that people can’t seem to get along.  I hate how politicians further divide us.  I hate how they are more concerned with staying in power that doing the right thing for our country.  I hate that a guy working at my house last month is dead from Covid-19.  I hate that the cop died from the protestors and the woman was shot by a cop.  I hate that my parents are trapped in a senior-living community.  I hate all the hatred.

I hate that I can’t hug anyone, because I really need one right now.

And I can’t stop crying…