There's the part where I go to bed, trying not to think about it.
There's the part when my husband comes to bed somewhere between 1 and 4 AM. I wake up. I ask the latest. Or I ask not to know the latest yet. I'm not ready.
Inevitably he tells me. That's often the end of my sleep for the night.
And then there's figuring out what the day will be ahead.
I know that readers of this blog include both left wing and right. You may be preparing to be offended. Please don't. Just please listen to me tell my story.
In 2016 I was sure that I had helped elect the first woman president. I believed I was voting for someone who was a professional and who would do good things for our country. During the summer of 2016 I sat with a good friend of mine, Koren, to whom I insisted Hillary would win. She said she wasn't so sure.
On the night of the election, a talk show host invited listeners to dedicate their vote to someone special. I dedicated my vote to Koren. In the months between when I had met with Koren and now, the mysterious illness she was grappling with had turned out to be breast cancer, returning with a vengeance. It turned out that visit was the last time I'd see her She died shortly before the election. I hoped to give her this vote as my memorial gift.
I know some of my readers might feel triumph when remembering that night. Others share the same horror that I did -- the feeling not only that the lesser candidate had won, but that the country as we knew it was about to change forever. That night when Trump was elected changed many things about my world and I associate it with the death of my friend.
Now, a decade later, a blue tsunami of this past week is a referendum on that change. This time when my husband came to bed, I felt the fear of past elections returning.
"Do you want to know?"
"Not yet."
"Are you sure?"
"... fine..."
"The Democrats won everything. Everything."
If you had told me ten years ago that this was coming, I would have been jubilant. I would have felt hope and relief. In theory this should mean a return not just to a blue government, but a government with the same norms that we had prior to Trump's election. Regardless of which party you support, it's clear that the rules have changed in how a great number things happen in politics now.
But that's actually not where I want to put my attention.
I don't want to write about which candidates do and don't support Israel.
I don't want to write about the question of whether or not DSA candidates are a threat to our democracy and whether or not they are a Trojan Horse of something else. Along those lines, I don't want to write about how much of the newly elected people are moderate and normal versus those who are extreme.
The thing I want to address is more personal. It's the reason I felt nothing -- no excitement at the results. I just felt numb.
I think about who I used to think of as "my people." In the weeks leading up to the election I saw several former friends of mine post videos and memes supporting Abdul El-Sayed. By and large these focused on the way he's been unfairly targeted by people who are just blatantly Islamophobic. I watched these memes and videos closely. I couldn't see anything in them with which I disagreed.
Nevertheless, their posting them made me anxious. Once again I found myself in a place where I didn't know what I could or couldn't say. Do these friends of mine realize that he may be a victim of hate, but that also his rhetoric is problematic for people like me. Does that matter to them? Did they ever think twice before posting something, wondering how it might be received?
I wonder --
One:
Am I paranoid?
Am I seeing things as threats that aren't?
Two:
Why don't I write to or call them directly to ask about this?
Because the cost to my nervous system is too much. The way I engage it best is by saying it here.
But also three:
Why is this on me?
It's been three years since my world changed forever. How many of these friends have reached out to me. Not "I'm worried about you" which implies I've lost my mind or "how are you doing?" that leaves me guessing what I can and can't safely say.
If just one of these friends had said in the last three years, "You know, I saw that thing you posted about Jews getting pushed out of publishing. How awful. I want you to know that I signed a petition to call out that discrimination."
Or "I saw this article that talked about the rise of anti-Semitism. What's your experience with that?"
The closest I can name of that was one friend who wrote to me after a Holocaust survivor was attacked with a molotov cocktail for marching on behalf of the return of the hostages. She said she was sad about that.
The bar is pretty low if that's the only time someone can reach out to see how I'm doing and then to also listen to me answer the question honestly and completely.
I realize I'm lashing out and that you might be wondering if this rant is meant for you personally. It might be. I'm posting it here because I also don't know how to approach you. I need you to know what I've been needing in order to continue these relationships.
So reach out to me. Tell me you've read this and tell me sincerely that you care. Say it in your own words so I believe it.
But finally, back to the election. Am I glad there was a blue tsunami? Yes I am.
But I don't think there is room for me to join the celebration.
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