I do know slightly one thing about grief.
When the bottom falls out from below 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 pale and pale till I used to be entire once more. Totally different, as a result of you’ll be able to’t return and be who you had been earlier than—however entire.
There’s no method for it. You may’t calculate precisely how lengthy it should take to get there. You may’t velocity via it, can’t skip the steps, can’t snap your fingers and simply be carried out. It takes time. It takes work.
There are not any phrases that make it higher as a result of typically it may possibly’t be made higher. No perspective, no cliche, no silver lining. You may’t deliver again the useless.
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 most likely will not assist Donald Trump’s little downside 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 concept 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 fully turned to mush and he struggled to open doorways, he was doing two and even three rallies a day. On daily basis.
I watched all of them. It was for trigger. I used to be working with the crew at Deliberate Parenthood to elect our first lady president, and I suffered via each horrible phrase he spewed.
It was agony, however it was value it as a result of we had been going to elect Hillary Clinton and eventually shatter that tumbler 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 below us, and the world turned the other way up, and we had been damaged. We had been all so damaged.
Nothing might make it higher. It simply sucked.
The grief was actual. It was deep. Like shedding a beloved one. We’d misplaced our nation, and nothing might make it higher. You may’t deliver again the useless.
Besides …
Via our grief, we marched and arranged and resisted. We fought again, and we gained. We fucking gained. And on that superb Saturday in November, I joined my fellow New Yorkers on the road to cheer for hours till we had been hoarse as a result of we’d carried out it.
We’d crushed the racist asshole, and we had been entire once more. Totally different—however entire.
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 will’t know the way lengthy it should take to be entire once more. It can take time and work. It gained’t be straightforward. Dropping a beloved one—or a rustic—by no means is.
However I’ve to imagine it should occur. As a result of I do know slightly one thing about grief. And I do know that although 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.
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