Thank you, Susan. I like hearing how others are balancing things.
My car was my mom's then she upgraded and gave it to me. Then I was going to sell it to force myself to exercise more so my parents took it again. Then after 2 years of living in LA without one, they gave it back to me when I won a small merit scholarship at school. When I got it back, it had a license plate liner for the local high school team. I kept meaning to take it off but I was lazy. My parents live in an affluent suburb and while not everyone who lives here is affluent (me included), people will always make assumptions. In the current environment, with road rage even more of a risk that it already is in LA, I had my dad remove it for me. I hate to feel that paranoid but I don't want identifying markers other than the legal ones. I don't want to give people excuses to pre-judge me.
sj, I can understand why you would feel guilty. What a strange world we live in, where joy and sorrow, rage and triumph all exist side by side, jumbling together tumbled about in our hearts.
I say we celebrate. We celebrate every joyful moment that we can bear to. We celebrate each other. We celebrate victories miniscule and galactic. We celebrate our own worth and we celebrate the worth of every member of the human race. We celebrate the effort that somehow came to naught, and we celebrate the moments when everything simply comes together in a constellation of perfection and there is victory. We celebrate, because to give in to despair will leave us no strength to fight. We celebrate in grey dresses and monotone voices. We celebrate in jeweltones and arias. We will celebrate because this might be the Apocalypse and we have learned from Buffy that when we've done fighting this one, there will be another. We will celebrate because this might Ragnaroc or it might be Armageddon but we will not go down without a fight. We will celebrate because joy only lives intermingled with grief. We will celebrate because every breath is a giant "Fuck you!" to the mundanity of evil.
ETA I say that as someone who has spent a portion of the last week attempting to learn biofeedback without equipment on the grounds that I hate the feel of my heart beating in my chest and I want to make it stop and in this world I wonder that it bothers. Ironically, I think the enforced relaxation has done me good.
I found out this morning that my brother voted for Gary Johnson. I wanted to scream at him, but knew it wouldn't do any good. He's solidly convinced he can do no wrong, even if you explain things precisely. He's solidly convinced the country is going to hell anyway so it doesn't matter who's in charge.
Hey, we have the same brother! And I know Colorado went to Clinton, so he can try and say his vote doesn't matter, but his attitude damn well does, and I just have to ignore his politics right now, because I need him as my sounding board as I'm going through therapy.
But I still want to punch him in the head.
SuziQ, sorry about the focus issues. I need to start work on my next Stanford class, so I have to find some focus today, myself. Also, glad your eyes are doing well!
Court tomorrow. At least I'm worrying about something other than the state of my country tonight.
Lots of things-working-out~ma, Callaluna.
I have been doing birthdays on FB more in recent years, but I also want to be here more and there less, so...
I need to be scarce on FB for the time being. I know it's helpful to people to talk about the election and share their fears and share articles, but I can't handle it. Right now, self-care for me has to be avoiding those conversations, because they send me straight into a panic spiral.
My cat is doing a lot of sleeping. A LOT, a lot. I think we are nearing the end. It started on Thursday with him being super clingy that night and has not gotten any better. He's close to 18, so unsurprising, but damn.
Healing ~ma for your dad, Sail!
