I wasn’t ready, not for any of the realities that are settling around me in these terrible days. I suppose I believed I was invincible and would be ‘exotic’ forever. Exotic was my beloved step-mother’s word for how I looked, not beautiful, not ordinary, not ugly but ‘exotic’. I also believed my body would never betray me and my brain would someday be as valuable as my body. Of course, these things were all fairytales; I always did have a vivid imagination.
Confidence is a grand thing when you are young and can afford it. When you have bouncy houses to fall back into and plenty of friends and relatives to catch you when you stumble. Truthfully, an overabundance of confidence in the young and not quite ready for prime time is a necessary ingredient to success. When we are young, we wander through life fluffing our hair, flexing our muscles and demanding attention for achievements we have not yet truly completed. When we are young, we are thrilled with the monumental triumph of being voted ‘most likely to succeed’ and decimated by our first broken heart.
It is all a matter of perspective, isn’t it? As we age, we gain insight into what is what matters. When we were young, especially if we are women, that first grey hair devastates us; it signals the loss of something we have been 
told is vital to our success; our youth. We stare at that grey traitor for long minutes before we grab our tweezer and pull it out by the root. From that moment on, every morning, we inspect for more. If you have dark hair like me, they are obvious those bright white streaming ribbons throughout your head. Today I keep my hair its original dark chocolate, but this is one of those luxuries up for reevaluation as reality digs its claws into me, striping me of vanity and confidence at once.
I wasn’t ready for what aging meant. There was what my mind and heart thought and there was the truth. These were so distinctly different; I was never able to reconcile them. There was what those who loved me said; brilliant, exotic, funny. There was what society said; pushy, fat, odd, too smart, different. There was what I thought; smart, not ugly, fat, damaged. None of these assessments ever fully aligned; mostly, we agreed I was smart, but in some cases, too smart was a condemnation. I realize now, decades later, it was rarely, maybe never, a compliment. How can anyone be too smart?
Too smart means you intimidate others, not through intent but simply through your existence in the same space as them. Too smart, if you are a woman, means you make others feel small or dumb. Too smart is never a compliment when it is offered by any person in a position of authority. For twenty-five (25) years, I have heard the backhanded compliment of ‘too smart’ and had one woman manager suggest I dumb myself down when interacting with certain peer groups. Looking back, perhaps I would have been better served following her advice.
I wasn’t ready, not for the pandemic, not for another round of long-term unemployment, not for being alone at 63 and not for growing old like this. Honestly, I thought it would all be much different. I had this fantasy in my head, fueled by my overabundance of confidence and the fairytale. I thought at this stage of life, I would be in my last career stop earning a good living, retirement settled and money in the bank. I thought I would be 
happily ensconced in a relationship with someone who loved me, respected me and thought exotic equaled beautiful and brains were sexy. I thought, because of that damnable fairytale, career and personal would somehow finally have merged into something resembling a life of shared travel, backyard barbecues, friends and family mixed in with laughter, sex and shared secrets.
I simply was not ready for the reality that is pounding me with the potential of losing everything I worked for my entire life. A lifetime of hard work being of zero value on a market that wants bright, shiny and new. Being too smart, too experienced and too damn old is a bitter pill to swallow. Reality has finally shattered the fairytale I held for decades. Mine were so closely held and so finely built, I weep as they tumble around me, knowing I cannot save even small pieces of them any longer. Now it is merely a question of how to let go knowing I have weeks, not months left before there is nothing more to keep me safe.
Reality settles around me like a miasma of bitterness, and each day I try to push it aside in the hope there will be something that rescues me. I realize this abyss is mine. I allowed this to happen to me. Perhaps I could have prevented it, but I chose differently. I chose others over myself too often. I have nothing left of a safety net. I will soon lose everything which allowed me to keep body and soul protected and some semblance of normalcy around me. There was a time I thought never giving up was important, a sign of strength. I no longer have anything left, certainly not that strength that says I can go another day being beaten down. 
I was not ready for this and do not have it in me to do this; my strength and my will to rise have been battered out of me. I wonder how many others are saying to themselves I have nothing left and nowhere to turn, I am done. I wonder how many others, like me, are saying what now and how will I survive after everything is gone. I wonder how many others ask these questions and find no answers in a world that seems to have become more heartless.
Too smart? I clearly wasn’t ready for this and my brains will not help because they reside in a body to old and I am unable to change any of my history or dumb it down from here. Now, choices are what I cut from a budget already sliced and diced to almost nothing; of course, I know what is next and am terrified.
Yet, I know I have more than others, so I am grateful for my small blessing even in the wake of my terror. I have had decades more than I was supposed to, so I have been blessed. I have known great love and seen all of my family’s next generation grow into extraordinary human-beings, so I have been blessed many times over. I cannot even in my terror and fury say that I haven’t had immeasurable blessings in friends and family over these many years. Even in counting my blessings, as I contemplate where I will be soon, I find I have a difficult time being grateful. I wonder how many of us will survive this intact.
I am caught between wonder and woe; nearly every single day, these warring emotions capture me and tangle me up. As I scroll through social media, the various news media I regularly read and television news, there are days I am simply unable to process the entirety of our national tragedy. I am seized by the images of where we are as a nation and as a people. As I said, I am stuck between wonder and woe.
responders and medical care providers, some would stand before them and scream they are the problem; they are part of the conspiracy to destroy the nation and their right to a haircut. I am brought to my knees; I am terrified, sickened and heartbroken by the horrifying examples of heartlessness demonstrated in the halls of power and the streets of our cities.
have not been corrupted by the world yet. Sometimes it is looking out my kitchen window and seeing my Lavender is still in bloom. Then there are those unique moments when I realize this will end and we will be together again.
people? Will we demand better of ourselves and those who seek high office?
There is a core of stupidity running through our nation and I am certain it is growing by leaps and bounds every year. I have evidence of this rampant growth, it all around us; it is everywhere.
If I had to guess as to who belonged to whom, the older Semen Demon’s belong to the older adults and the younger ones belong to the Mom, who also belongs to the Grandparents. So that is in total eleven (11) people, out and about in the community only three (3) of them wearing masks, none of them wearing gloves. Except for the two (2) babies, all of them casually strolling through the store, touching everything, loud talking and generally causing a disruption.
adventures, protests on the courthouse steps and blocking of emergency rooms. It doesn’t matter your choice of stupid; it is all the same in the end. Your choice of stupid puts everyone else at risk. Your choice of stupid creates a problem for everyone you meet.
Sunday Go To Meeting finest, no Family Dinner; none of that was on the menu for those of us following the rules. In fact, most of America was locked up tight with whomever they are isolated in place. Some were fortunate, isolated at home with those they loved, healthy and with plenty. Others were not so lucky as these, a host of things come to mind as to the circumstances that might be in play.
their families at risk. The Pastors who did this were not leading their flocks in good faith; in truth, some said they were making political statements, were willing to fight to the end for their First Amendment Rights of Religion, Free Speech and to Peaceably Assemble. Pastor Tony Spell said;
from all walks of life. My assumption, they have nothing to occupy their minds. Then some simply cannot be still. Those who can’t wrap their minds into acceptance of a global pandemic of this magnitude. Those people who insist this is instead a grand conspiracy to damage the re-election of the grand poo-bah currently delivering a daily banquet of self-aggrandization and lies to the world.
this is a scary time for all of us. Nevertheless, we will get through it, this isn’t forever and it isn’t the end of times either.
But I will tell you a well-kept secret; even Introverts need human contact. Yes, there I said it, now don’t go running out and telling everyone you know to bother their introverted friends and family randomly.
Of course, I am. Don’t misunderstand me; I love my friends and my family. I love seeing them in small doses. The problem is I don’t make friends easily; I don’t trust easily; thus, I have a very small circle I call a friend. Most of my friends do not live anywhere near me, maybe this intentional I have never really considered this possibility. I think I am the only truly single one among us, the only one that lives entirely alone. Yes, this is my choice. I suppose if I made different choices in romantic partners along the way, I could by now have someone in my home, in my bed and my life; I did not do that. So I sit this morning four weeks into self-isolation and wonder if this is Paradise.
and children as people are thrown together with their families and cannot find a peaceful coexistence. Yet I think to myself when I was young, we did it on family vacations locked in cars for days or in my case on 27 ft boats. Was it always peaceful? No, hell, we sometimes fought like mortal enemies, but we didn’t kill each other. It was on these holidays I learned to escape into my mind for peace.
saw us make improvements. Some were huge and established a standard for generations to strive toward. Others were small, barely felt by most, and yet they moved us forward incrementally. Of course, we also had enormous missteps, terrible acts of brutality against entire people, against classes of people; humans can sink low when fear and greed rise and take over. Even worse, when either of these base emotions was stoked by religious or national outrage, we acted in concert to exact retribution or maintain our unearned preeminence.
apart. With only one exception, never has this nation been so divided by politics during a crisis. With only one exception, the Civil War has this nation faced a disaster of this magnitude without coming together, solving problems together and seeing each other as kindred spirits and fellow citizens. Today, we are further apart than ever with the tearing of the fabric spearheaded by the man at the top. Witness his actions of Friday when signing the most recent bi-partisan Bill to support America, not one Democrat was invited to that signing, though without them that Bill would not have been on the Resolute Desk for his signature.
frankly their self-exploitation. Mind you, I am going to give these young women credit where it is due, they tapped into a market, continue to tap into that market and have made themselves extremely wealthy, good for them.
ambiguous hints and then, when that doesn’t get the rise they needed, the full frontal attacks. There is nothing to stop them, they will go after individuals for their personal stances, they will go after anything and everything without moderation or exception. Suddenly, you feel unsafe, attacked and are exiting.
matter, even in the abyss of the internet. If your friend doesn’t stop the attack, you are savaged, gleefully and without let up. From this point on, your friendship is questioned as you no longer trust your friend and certainly will not interact in social media and will not put yourself in a position where you might meet these people in a real life setting.
Where does language and action intersect to create a society in which individuals are no longer seen or heard?
find myself dragged down in the muck, mired in name calling and character assignation (mine) until I bow out of the conversation, defeated by the sheer ugliness of the attacks. These always end with me wondering how my friend or family member could sit back and allow these strangers, these new friends of theirs to attack my character and intellect without mercy simply because of my disagreement with a position. I am stunned by the vitriol within the virtual world of social media. I am brought to my knees some days, but truthfully over the past ten years this has been escalating, the introduction of social media and our ability to sit behind a computer screen to communicate without repercussion has shattered previous norms. I am always hurt by the unwillingness of my friends and family to stop the attacks, I always assume it is fear that stops them. Fear of retribution or ridicule from these friends with very specific and often extreme views.
to something less than, is well deserved. If on the other hand, social media simply provides an outlet for all the worst and is not representative of us, as a people than still we fail but we have the opportunity to redeem ourselves.
more worshipful adherence to a party line moving further and further toward extremes. There is no room any longer for moderation, freedom of thought or thoughtful thinking. Any challenge is considered traitorous and opens the challenger up to being pilloried in the public square. Nevertheless, I continue to challenge. I continue to ask questions. I continue to think freely rather than being led like a lemming to the edge of the cliff. I continue to seek the best answers, no matter where that answer comes from and look for how to fix problems in the best way possible for the nation, not just for those I consider allies and friends. I still believe we have a nation worth saving for all of us. Perhaps I am naïve, yet I believe all our citizens are worth saving and while some are certainly worthy of demonizing based on their horrendous behavior, they are nonetheless part of the fabric of this nation and we must find the means to deal with them within the bounds of our laws, our norms and our hopefulness in a better future.
I think we must go much further back to find the initial cracks. The first crack, when LBJ signed Civil Rights and the parties shifted. The next with Nixon and the Southern Strategy. The continuation with Reagan and Trickle Down Economics, shifting wealth from the middle to the top creating larger and larger gaps in income each decade since. Barack Obama’s election simple brought fear to the surface, fear of other and fear that what White Folks had been hearing for years was coming to fruition, they were no longer the dominate majority. With the election of Donald Trump, that fear showed its ugly underbelly, it is manifest across the nation and of course vibrant and quivering on Social Media.
I read somewhere recently that hungry hearts willingly eat lies, or something to that effect. This simple statement stuck with me and I wondered how many different situations it might apply too.
Jones that resulted in 918 people who willingly murdered their own children, loved ones and selves while shouting Hallelujah. I compare them to all the many once respectable Republicans of Washington who willingly heap praise on the singularly most ignorant President in our history and his quest to ‘Make America Great Again’.
Donald J. Trump is the personification of 246 years of slavery
QBG_Tilted Tiara 