I'll take LOVE, please.
I love my country. I love democracy. I love our diversity as people. I love justice, when it's applied fairly to all, including the rich and powerful. I love my life. I love my freedom. I love my right to choose. I love TRUTH (that's a favorite five-letter word of mine). Is the United States of America perfect? No, it is always a work in progress. There are always more things to fix, and more people who need a hand. But it's definitely in a much better place today than it was in early January 2021. Our economy is the strongest in the world, the strongest it's ever been; record job growth; manufacturing jobs returning; paychecks growing. At the same time, greed is growing, too, as companies continue to price gouge us on groceries and gas and housing. The immigration system remains broken and in need of strong repairs (and remains so thanks in no small part to a lack of bipartisanship in the house, and whispers from an ex-president). In order to choose love, I have to choose the candidates that are offering it, and that's candidates Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. They came from middle-class backgrounds, they worked hard to get where they are, and they can relate to the American people and their struggles to improve their lives. They are also offering HOPE, another great 4-letter word. They have real plans to improve our lives, from addressing price gouging, to restoring women's rights to choose; real plans to help small business, to help parents pay for daycare, and to make the extremely-wealthy pay their fair share. Plans to address the housing crisis, plans to continue to stand with our allies, plans to treat all Americans the same, regardless of color, religion, gender. I don't want to go back to what the other candidates--Trump and Vance--are offering: Continued division and chaos. Prejudicial treatment of people of color, LGBTQ people, and women. Christian nationalism, in a country whose foundation was always about freedom of religion, not forcing one on us all. Offering friendship with dictators, and abandonment of our allies in Europe. Promising to use the military against our own people, and labeling those of us who don't agree with their policies as "the enemy within". All of that is based in hate, not love. This is an election unlike any I've ever seen before, nor want to see again: Love vs. Hate. I choose love. Always.
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NOTE TO READERS: ADULT CONTENT, TRIGGER WARNING (CHILDHOOD ABUSE)
I’m turning 70 this year, my stepfather/adopted father is long dead, and I don’t know why my subconscious is awakening this topic again. This sudden reappearance in a nightmare, seemingly out of nowhere, worries me. Am I a dormant volcano of repressed anger about to blow? I scared the crap out of my husband last night. I was screaming, and he couldn’t wake me. He finally even lightly slapped me, and next in desperation pulled me half up till I finally opened my eyes. Of course, I fought him, because he then became the assailant in my dream. He became my stepfather. I felt that reaction, and that scream, in my dream. It was not a scream of fear. It was a scream of shaking, erupting anger. In the dream I shook off his attempt to hold me to him, restrain me against my will, and I did so with a Hulk-ian reaction, my scream full of rage, my body with strength, my mind an inferno. Still, I’m crying instead of raging as I write this. It’s fucking irritating to me that I’m still bothered by childhood abuse. Still angry. I lived so many of my years growing up just trying to push it all down. Trying to find the bright side. Tamping down the anger. Hiding the truth from my mother. Wishing she’d care enough to notice. Gritting my teeth. Frustrated. Furious. Pretending. Laughing at them. Longing to be loved. Hating. Swallowing my loathing. Afraid. Brave. Ready to cry. Ready to scream. Ready to run. Wishing I was capable of violence. Glad that I wasn’t. But still wishing. I eventually confided in friends in high school. I told my first husband. Told my second husband. I’ve written about it, though only alluding to it, without any real details. I’ve written about it, in detail, in a memoir still in process. But it still seems to reside in me, hide in me, bide it’s time in me. It’s still a dark entity that can rise up like bile in my throat, slip like acrid smoke into my dreams and choke me. What do you do with all these feelings toward those who were supposed to love and take care of you? When everyone in your childhood let you down? Your mother, your father, your adoptive father/stepfather. Your grandfather died, your grandmother sighed. Every single one. Every single one either wasn’t there, didn’t care, or was the spider in our lair. My nightmare. #nightmare #abuse #childhoodabuse #baddream #memoir #metoo |
AuthorDonna J. Abear is the author of a children's play SPRUCEY, THE BLUE CHRISTMAS TREE, a memoir RELATIVELY CRIMINAL, and a humor book MOM…YOU’RE NOT NAKED, ARE YOU?. Married, mother of four, grandmother of two, and a “dog mom” too, she is living her dream in the Pacific Northwest among the trees and wildlife she loves. Archives
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