It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. This year has been a total dumpster fire. Non-stop hits that keep coming before you’re able to heal from the last. It keeps you anxious and unable to breathe. It’s left me feeling lost, alone, desolate.
The year started out with my boyfriend sending me packing for some other woman. Goodbye and good riddance, right?? Not so fast, my stupid heart is attached. How I wish I could stab that dumb bitch (my heart, not his new chick) into silence. I’d also fallen in love with his son (don’t be gross!) For someone who grew up with severe abandonment issues, being forced to abandon a child, even a teenaged one that’s not mine, was crippling. I am sure he’s okay. I’ve texted him here and there, made sure he knew I was available if he needed to talk, and sent him birthday gifts. I’m probably projecting my own abandonment onto him. He has a mom and dad that are there and love him. He doesn’t need me.
February saw me canceling a romantic Valentine’s trip I had been planing since December. I am probably going to have to eat the money for those plane tickets since, it’s you know, the apocalypse, and we can’t go anywhere. We also spent February watching Italy’s lockdown experience. People went out on their balconies and sang! They came together as a community. It was scary, heartbreaking, and uplifting at the same time. Do you think we could accomplish that type of togetherness in the US? No way! Everyone is out for themselves here. Pull yourself up by the bootstrap and all. Screw the poor; they need to work harder. You’ve gotta love the good ‘ole US of A.
March saw the lockdown come to the US with the fear that is COVID-19. It also saw the conspiracy theorist claiming COVID isn’t real, it’s a Chinese hoax, masks are liberal control policy. The states that locked down saw their cases decrease; the states that did not saw them increase. But staying home is a governmental control tactic. We should all go about our regular business because the economy (which we literally made up) is more important than human lives. Democratic governors are being threatened, maligned, and in the worst-case scenario, the “militia” plotted to kidnap Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer.
April and May continued along the same vane. Frontline workers being exposed and dying because we have no personal protective equipment (PPE). The United States of America and we have no PPE? Why? Well, maybe it’s because Trump gave it away to China and left us with expired crap. Nurses were wearing actual garbage bags in New York. And then came Memorial Day weekend and the death of George Floyd.
By summer, protests popped up all over the United States. But the city best known for the protests was Portland, Oregon. Which surprise! I live in the suburbs. The focal point of the protest in Portland was the Mark O Hatfield Federal Courthouse (the place my ex-husband works.) It’s funny; Portland is fine. Portland has always been fine, yet the federal government would have you believe it’s been overrun by ANTIFA (an idea, not a group) who are terrorists out to destroy our nation. Yo Dummies! Antifa stands for anti-fascism. It is not a terrorist group, but an idea, and somehow we now have white supremacists, known as the Proud Boys, shooting protesters in the streets and getting away with it. How in the actual fuck did we enter this backward, twilight zone society?
And this continued, on and on, all summer long in Portland. First, we had the protesters, the people of color, and their supporters. As police brutalized them, enter the Wall of Moms. As the moms were brutalized, we had the Wall of Dad’s with leaf blowers diverting the tear gas. And after an unprovoked attack on a Navy Vet, we had the Wall of Vets. It was the top story every weekend. Protesters went out in the streets, the police beat them back, the “President” tweeted that Portland has been taken over and the local the government won’t do a damn thing about it, and scores of Trump’s lackeys made their way to Portland to protect “law and order.” Except law and order is not what they’re after. Submission is what they want.
Labor Day weekend, the official end of summer, came and went. We had notices of extreme fire weather, burn bans, and high wind warnings. All of this came to pass, including the wildfires. They were brutal. I’ve seen fires like this in California in recent years, but not Oregon. Entire towns were decimated. On September 8th, we had three fires close to each other burning near my home. I left that night and went to my mother’s in a neighboring town. The local school district, which my children attend, canceled school for day two. The next day my town was under a level 3 mandatory evacuation, and my mother was under a level 2. I found places to stay for four children, six cats, four dogs, and two snakes. (Three households worth of pets). All of my children stayed at my ex-husband’s for a week. As soon as my mother’s dropped back down to level 2, the two older girls left Portland to go back to grandmas. I was in a hotel from September 9th – 17th when my town finally dropped back down to level two. September is a blur of fire, smoke, and chaos. Our home town is still here. Not everyone was that lucky.
Unsurprisingly in this climate, the fires became political fodder locally. Many locals went out to fight the fires. For that, our town is eternally grateful. However, the city government posted an inflammatory and scaremongering post on their official Facebook page stating the Fire Department had left the town undefended and no one will be here to put out the fire. This was not exactly true. They were in town; they had pulled back from the danger. Here is a link with the view of local citizens. And here is a statement from the Oregon Fire Marshal’s office. You can decide for yourself, but the added division doesn’t help the already political animosity that feels ready to blow.
This is still causing considerable uproar in the community. It’s funny, those who walked around toating guns to scare protesters in town are now condemning the fire department while they Back the Blue. This is the Dystopian Nightmare that has become 2020. Everyone who is not a conservative is now Antifa out to destroy our way of life. Sadly, people believe this nonsense. Sadly, they believe the lies of a carnival barker.
And now, here we are, the middle of October, and the hits keep coming. The school which opened limited, in-person learning last week, has closed it this week. It seems our cases of COVID are up. I wonder if the evacuations, the world’s worst air quality, and people being forced to work while breathing in extreme wildfire smoke contributed?
On a personal level, my ex ( you know, the one from January) blocked me. It seems someone told him I did something I didn’t do. He chose to believe that person rather than me. I guess at some point, Karma will have its way. Yet, it’s left me shaken once again because he promised me he would never abandon me. (Remember the extreme abandonment issues from above?) Not only did he reinforce my belief that loving people leads to abandonment, but he also broke his promise on a lie. You can’t trust anyone, no matter how magical it seems in the beginning. Everyone will hurt you. Everyone will abandon you. Everyone will betray you. Happiness is an illusion, and loyalty doesn’t exist.
And with two and half months of 2020 left, a surprisingly contentious election on the horizon (Seriously! Why do people believe Trump? Why can they not see him for the narcissistic, white supremacist, misogynistic, lying, stealing, rapist that he is??) And you one issue voters, SHAME ON YOU!!!! You are voting to control a woman’s right to control her own body while throwing the entire world under the bus to support your patriarchal religious beliefs. SHAME ON YOU!!!) and citizens literally killing each other over masks, one must wonder if we’re going to make it to 2021.
At this point, I would like an underground bunker stocked with food, water, books, and the internet where I can live out the rest of my days hiding from this apocalyptical world. (Don’t forget the rum, lots and lots of rum, among other things.) I can’t take any more of 2020 and I feel the worse has yet to come.