I do know a little bit one thing about grief.
When the bottom falls out from underneath you, when the world is the other way up, when you find yourself simply damaged. So damaged.
I’ve been there.
And I’ve additionally come again. My ft discovered the bottom once more, the world turned proper facet up, and the brokenness light and light till I used to be complete once more. Completely different, as a result of you’ll be able to’t return and be who you have been earlier than—however complete.
There’s no components for it. You may’t calculate precisely how lengthy it can take to get there. You may’t velocity by way of it, can’t skip the steps, can’t snap your fingers and simply be performed. It takes time. It takes work.
There aren’t any phrases that make it higher as a result of typically it might probably’t be made higher. No perspective, no cliche, no silver lining. You may’t deliver again the lifeless.
Generally it simply sucks.
And it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks. Till it doesn’t.
I first wrote about Donald Trump in 2011, proper right here at Day by day Kos, once I was only a brand-new affiliate editor. Right here’s the lede:
This in all probability will not assist Donald Trump’s little drawback with being perceived as a racist asshole.
It’s stunning how properly these phrases maintain up, 13 years later. And but not stunning in any respect. Trump was all the time a racist asshole, lengthy earlier than I wrote about it. Hell, lengthy earlier than I used to be even born. In 13 years, he’s solely gotten worse.
Again then, it was about his gleefully malicious promotion of the birther conspiracy idea about President Barack Obama. This yr, it was about Vice President Kamala Harris’ Blackness.
The extra issues change, the extra nothing modifications with this man.
In 2016, I watched each single Trump rally. That was my job. In these days, earlier than his now-78-year-old mind had utterly turned to mush and he struggled to open doorways, he was doing two and even three rallies a day. Day by day.
I watched all of them. It was for a very good trigger. I used to be working with the crew at Deliberate Parenthood to elect our first girl president, and I suffered by way of each horrible phrase he spewed.
It was agony, nevertheless it was value it as a result of we have been going to elect Hillary Clinton and eventually shatter that cup ceiling.
That fucking glass ceiling.
I wore my headband that day. I took all of the smiling selfies. My crew proudly wore our “Madam President If You’re Nasty” sweatshirts we’d had made particular only for us.
After which the bottom fell out from underneath us, and the world turned the other way up, and we have been damaged. We have been all so damaged.
Nothing may make it higher. It simply sucked.
The grief was actual. It was deep. Like dropping a beloved one. We’d misplaced our nation, and nothing may make it higher. You may’t deliver again the lifeless.
Besides …
By our grief, we marched and arranged and resisted. We fought again, and we gained. We fucking gained. And on that wonderful Saturday in November, I joined my fellow New Yorkers on the road to cheer for hours till we have been hoarse as a result of we’d performed it.
We’d crushed the racist asshole, and we have been complete once more. Completely different—however complete.
The racist asshole is again.
The glass ceiling stays unshattered.
The world is the other way up once more.
And it simply sucks.
This grief is actual, and proper now nothing could make it higher. That is how grief works. We are able to’t understand how lengthy it can take to be complete once more. It should take time and work. It gained’t be straightforward. Dropping a beloved one—or a rustic—by no means is.
However I’ve to consider it can occur. As a result of I do know a little bit one thing about grief. And I do know that despite the fact that it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks—we are going to discover the bottom once more. And we are going to come again.
