timelines

I've been having trouble remembering everything that's gone wrong lately. I have to think about it for a minute.

About eight months ago, I injured my knee. Small meniscus tear that took about six months to heal. It was depressing, I was struggling with school, failing Calculus II, and as the months went by, the injury was making it generally more difficult to cope with everything.

I had an interaction around that time, and it turned out to be a bad idea. Lasted a month or two, don't want to elaborate, but it really messed with my head. Stressful, painful, confusing. I remember thinking that it made for an especially brutal one-two combo. I remember hoping there wasn't a third strike coming.. 

Then I got the news about my Dad. He's in Hawaii with my sister now. I'm not sure I'll ever see him again. It shouldn't be one more thing to add to a list, but it is what it is. I'm coping, like I'm coping with everything else. Not very well.

Bernie's loss was devastating. I stand by everything I posted at the time. Electoral politics is fucked. My hope that anything will improve politically is fucked. This wasn't an election. This isn't a democracy, representative or otherwise. Five years invested in watching them rig it for the oligarchy again.

Then I had to stop going to visit my father, because we were hit by this global pandemic. I had to stop doing everything. Months later, they're reopening in Vermont, minus anything I'd actually want to do, but immediately we've had a few outbreaks. They're hoping it's not a trend.. but of course it is.

Nationwide rioting still ongoing. I love that they're fighting, but it's brutal to watch, and I feel helpless to do anything. I also feel hopeless about their chances of getting anywhere. Which means being anxious about any number of awful outcomes. My predictions on Minneapolis dismantling their police department? One way or another, they'll accomplish absolutely nothing.

This feels like a lot to me. It's no wonder my sanity is stretched thin, if not in absolute tatters. Not that this is the end of it. Hurricane season looming now. Won't hit me here in Vermont, but they're expecting it to be the worst ever, for some variety of reasons including climate change.

I'm pretty sure about the economic depression, too. We can't just keep bailing out wall st with trillions of dollars, without consequence. Given all this chaos, our leaders will be worse than ever at handling it. Not sure how much time we have before that hits, but dealing with natural disasters isn't going to help. Neither will the mounting civil unrest. No question, it will be getting worse.

There's a terrifying amount of awful shit happening in the world at the same time, but my personal life hasn't been going so well, either. It's so bad, it's surreal. What if I could just disconnect. Be objective. This is the world, exploding. It's not going to go very well, but it is interesting to watch unfold. What if I had a life to live, and I weren't sitting at home all day doing nothing. That might help too.