America Stands Alone, and This Canadian is Tired

I can't keep up. I seriously can't keep up

Rest in Peace, President Carter. You were a hero here in Canada, and we mourn you deeply. I’m glad you passed on peacefully before you had to see what Trump is doing to the country and the people that you so proudly served. | Photo by Chela B. on Unsplash

It used to be my fervant hope that someday, I would run out of things to write about.

It was a fool’s hope; there will never be a time when every human being around the globe has clean water, safe food, medical care, mental healthcare and access to education.

There will never be a time when there is no more war, no genocide, no suffering. No children abused, no person in slavery, and everybody free to enter or leave marriage freely and without disdain or legal obstacles.

There will never be a time where every single human being has bodily autonomy that is fully respected by the law of every country on the planet.

It won’t happen. But I used to hope for it anyway. Though the world will never be perfect, it can always get better than it is right now. And we should fight for that.

I hoped that someday, I might lay down the advocate’s pen and go back to writing fiction like I used to do in the past. Maybe I’d take up poetry again, as I haven’t done since I was a girl in school. I flatter myself, but I used to be pretty good at it.

But now, as I struggle to keep up with the drafts on my list and the constant stream of panic-inducing headlines and the rapidly restructuring world around me, I find those hopes swirling down the drain like blood from a cut finger.

I can’t keep up. There’s just too much.

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How do I give a thoroughly researched take on how transgender people are being targeted in the United States, and how the dismantling of USAID harms LGBTQ+ people around the entire globe? I’m working on it, but the news keeps changing before my eyes as I type.

How do I give a nuanced take on the state of the social safety nets in the U.S., and how do I not tear my hair out when I turn around and see more harm being done as I hit ‘publish’?

How do I do my job?

How do I talk about the relations between the U.S. and Canada—my country—while I look over my grocery budget and tighten my belt because I know our food is soon to become unaffordable?

How do I plan for my wedding, knowing that some of the people on the invite list voted for this to happen? How do I grin and bear it while they come to my country and dance at my reception and try to talk me into moving to the States instead of having my partner move here?

I’ll do it, but damn if it doesn’t set something in my heart aflame.

It’s good that something in me has heat left, because the rest of me is hoarfrost and glacial water.

I haven’t listened to Trump’s State of the Union yet. I will at some point, but for now I have too much to do, and no stomach to listen to his breathy voice, trying to project strength into the microphone but only reminding everyone that he’s a blithering old coot with no brain and no soul.

I can’t keep up. But I’m going to keep trying.

Solidarity wins.

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