“Hi, I\u2019m Sarah,\u201d says the young blonde women at the Sea Turtle Preservation Society orientation.<\/p>\n
\u00a0I am early (like always) and the first one there.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cWhere did you park?\u201d she asks, as I sign in.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the CVS,\u201d I say, and I can feel her frown before I look up and see it. \u201cIs that a problem?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt all depends on the manager on duty,\u201d Sarah says.<\/p>\n
\u201cAm I going to get towed?\u201d I ask, with a hint of hysteria hovering in my question.<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably not,\u201d she says, \u201cWe\u2019ll be done in about an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, hell, that\u2019s not great, I think to myself, and knowing my tendency to obsess about things like maybe getting towed, decide to move my car. As I toss my notebook on the table, I say, \u201cYour website suggests parking at the CVS,\u201d and then for some reason I feel it\u2019s necessary to add, \u201cIt\u2019s a pain in the ass to cross A1A!\u201d as I huff out.<\/p>\n
Oh, Beth, I think as I stand sweating at the busy corner of A1A and 192 waiting for the interminable traffic lights to change so I can dart across the street to the CVS parking lot and my car baking on the hot asphalt. Nothing like spewing negative energy all over the room. As I crank up the a\/c and sit idling at the traffic light, I wondered this: Just what is my snappishness about?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true that Jim and I are skipping town in just a couple of days and I am well into my \u201cnormal\u201d process of pre-trip frenzies trying to accomplish the impossible before we depart: to leave the house and yard and porches in pristine order, organized, decluttered and cleaned, every possible cat contingency thought through and planned for, emergency phone numbers sent to Brother Bill just in case the plane goes down, newspapers temporarily stopped, dirty clothes laundered, webmail cleared, blog updated, etc., etc.<\/p>\n
In the back of my mind, I worry that our neighbors, generously caring for our cats yet again, will think me a lousy housekeeper. Isn\u2019t that ridiculous? Maybe so, but I grew up with a mother who put a lot of stock in what others thought of her, and here\u2019s a charming anecdote: after the birth of one of her babies, brother Bill I think, my grandmother visited and while I\u2019m sure she was helpful, here\u2019s what my mother remembered: that she commented on the dust on the chandelier over the dining room table.<\/p>\n
I travel enough that I see I have a pattern \u2013 it starts with the planning, accompanied by an exuberant high anticipating all the new experiences about to occur, which then morphs into anxiety and fear as the actual day of departure approaches, which then reaches a crescendo and begins to dissipate not one whit until we have cleared airport security and are actually sitting in our seats on the plane and I snap the seat belt secure around my waist. There\u2019s something about that strapping in that I find deeply comforting. By the time the snacks and beverages are served, I am generally downright jolly.<\/p>\n
But, I suspect that this early morning Saturday snappishness is due to more than trip anxiety. This has been a tough week for many of us who are either affected directly by the Supreme Court decisions restricting Muslims, restricting information about abortion services, and further gutting union membership, or who care about those things. Justice Kennedy\u2019s retirement brings forth ill will still festering over the theft of Merrick Garland\u2019s seat. It is easy to despair.<\/p>\n
In laments with my elderly dad, he says, \u201cWe are two countries.\u201d At least two, I think, and given the structure of our government (and its co-option by big money, Citizens United, <\/em>anyone?) I fear that half the country will always feel disenfranchised, no matter who is President. The future can look bleak. I wake most mornings, around 3:00 a.m., consumed with fear that our democracy is slipping away. And that I\u2019m not doing enough to stop that. It is easy to despair.<\/p>\n This past Friday morning, I was in class, a weeklong Metaphysics class at the Unity church I attend, and the teacher was doing his routine check-in going around the table asking us what questions we had on the previous material before starting the current day\u2019s material. When it was my turn, my eyes welled up and my voice cracked. I eked out, \u201cI am so full of sorrow, I don\u2019t know what to do. I feel so sad about the murders of the journalists and staff at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis.\u201d (I don\u2019t add that I am enraged that the President routinely denigrates the press). I struggle with how to stay rooted in my divinity, my goodness, and trust in a higher good in the midst of so much turmoil. How do I show up and function in a helpful way in this fractured world?<\/p>\n The good Reverend calls me an empath, which is probably accurate, since my feelings are alive and bleeding all over the room, and if that means someone who feels A LOT. He says it is important to not get overwhelmed by my feelings because that can lead to victim consciousness, which can lead to overwhelm and a tendency to want to check out, or at least move to Canada or Copenhagen, where dear friends just vacationed and loved it, but those really aren\u2019t options. The victim stance serves no one. I know he isn\u2019t going to wave a magic wand and \u201cfix\u201d me or our broken world, and that\u2019s okay \u2013 I feel heard and acknowledged and proceed to gather up my scattered feelings and focus (mostly) on what\u2019s right in front of me – other students\u2019 questions and their own struggles. There is comfort sitting among other conscious seekers.<\/p>\n Later that evening on his HBO show, Bill Maher paraphrases Barack Obama, who said in response to the events of the week, \u201cDon\u2019t mope.\u201d<\/p>\n Good advice, isn\u2019t it? I\u2019ll take it to heart and try not to mope and overreact to teensy, tiny, unimportant things. To that end, at the conclusion of the sea turtle orientation, I went up to Sarah and said, \u201cI am sorry for my initial crabbiness.\u201d<\/p>\n She flashed me a sweet smile and said, \u201cIt\u2019s okay, really, and I\u2019ve already changed the website.\u201d<\/p>\n Then I headed over to their store and bought a sweatshirt and turtle earrings and a metal straw and joshed with the volunteers, turtle lovers all, and then climbed back into my steaming car for the ride home.<\/p>\n Reader\u2019s Invitation: <\/strong>I always love hearing from you and anything you want to share. What are your coping mechanisms in times of troubles, internal or external?<\/p>\n Please Note: Your comments come to be to be reviewed before they appear on the site. I usually do this within 24 hours of receipt. If you do not want your comments to appear publicly, please tell me that and I will respect your wishes. Thanks! \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Hi, I\u2019m Sarah,\u201d says the young blonde women at the Sea Turtle Preservation Society orientation. \u00a0I am early (like always) and the first one there. \u00a0\u201cWhere did you park?\u201d she asks, as I sign in. \u201cAt the CVS,\u201d I say, and I can feel her frown before I look up and see it. \u201cIs that… Advice from Obama: Coping When Political Division Gets You Down<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gratitude"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=537"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":804,"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions\/804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}