What I Don’t Want to Admit

This is difficult. I don’t want to admit a truth I’ve come to see about myself. I don’t want to say it out-loud, and I certainly don’t care to put it in print.

I’ve been hiding under the experience of weariness, using “I’m too tired” as my excuse. Of course, it’s also true that I’m exhausted from all the noise, crises, campaigns, threats, viruses, lies, predictions, warnings, demands — everything filling the headlines and airwaves. I’m worn out. I’m done. I can’t do this anymore. That’s true.

Admittedly, my timing’s bad because, no matter who wins next week, the heavy lifting hasn’t even begun. If the current Administration is a foretaste of the next four years, terms like “heavy lifting” won’t do justice to what will be demanded of the nation. Every problem we’ve faced Trump has successfully made worse. We’ll need somehow to pursue massive change without a civil war. Suggestions?

And if a new Administration comes in, and with it a new US Senate majority, we’ll have a moment of elation followed by the sober recognition of what must be done. The nation’s been divided and the government’s been broken. These things can’t be repaired in a few months. A pandemic needs to be managed. Ten million cries for economic and racial justice can’t be forever ignored — the list is long, the demands are urgent, and the work will be brutally hard. It’s not the sort of thing we take on when we’re exhausted.

When I’ve asked friends why they think I’m so tired, some have suggested that I’m just depressed. Maybe.

A few folks lowered their voices to say, almost too softly to be heard, “me too.” Everyone’s fried. We’re all running on empty. We’re all where he wants us to be: exhausted.

That’s when I hear the call to get tough, to roll up my sleeves and make change happen. I just need to stop feeling sorry for myself and get to work assuring my infant granddaughter that she will have a sustainable world in which to live. She and her earth need a future. I hear the need. I recognize the demand. I admire it, agree with it, think it’s right. It’ll take tons of energy. On a good day, I can contribute two ounces. I’m tired.

It isn’t the tiredness I hate to admit. It’s that my sense of exhaustion is masking something else, something hard to accept and even harder to confess. What lies just below my weariness is the sense that I have stood too close to evil and come away stained. I feel like I’m filthy and can’t get clean. It isn’t exhaustion I most detest. It’s the sense that I’ve been violated and left filthy. I feel dirty. As an American and as a grandmother, I feel as though I can’t clean off the stench of Trump’s behaviors. I don’t need rest so much as restoration. I’m tired of trying to wash off hidden shame.

The grabbing of women and caging of children, stacks of lies and calls to brutality, affection for pick-up trucks with gun-toting, bullying drivers — it isn’t just his degeneration anymore. It’s become part of each of us. We’ve been stained by his outrageous lack of character and, I suppose, our all-too-frequent silence. Not knowing how to scrub ourselves clean, we want to retreat under cover of tiredness, go to bed and pull the covers over our heads.

So here’s the unhappy confession: I feel violated and I feel dirty. Until that changes, I’m going to feel tired.

November 3rd promises an opportunity — however flawed by racist traditions, active voter suppression and waves of misinformation — for a collective and restorative cleansing. We need not be defined by his filth eternally. We can seize the opportunity, cleanse our national soul, and be freed to begin the hard work of restoration.