Today is a day of mourning for Native Americans. It has been so for fifty years. As our country awakens again to the tragedies that have dogged us at every stage of our history, it’s difficult to find a holiday that can be celebrated without mixed feelings.
Truthfully, what holiday was ever free of baggage? These days were already burdened with the small and large issues we have with them, wrapped up in financial woes, boundaries with family members, or our own dark personal struggles.
If you go back to my very first blog post, I talked about the pressure of trying to make all the holiday magic by myself. In the couple of years since then, I’ve realized that I don’t have to do it alone.
After yesterday’s post I felt like I had to follow up because today was so different from the past several weeks.
I woke up this morning and had finished molting.
I’m on high alert a lot of the time. The past few weeks have been especially bad. When I meditate, or take a walk outside, I can temporarily hit pause on all the stimulation my brain is getting and it settles way down. Then, the volume shoots back up to ten.
The night before the election just a week ago, I was anxious, but resigned. Soon, we would have an answer and we could move on with our lives having a sense of what the next four years would be like.
I wanted to write about how I was feeling at that moment, a written time capsule that I could look back on. But I didn’t.
This Halloween was clear and chilly, and a Saturday. In an alternate universe, it would have been the perfect day for trick-or-treating, but the sidewalks were empty.
