It’s been months since I’ve been on most social media regularly, and I have to say, I’m happier for it. Especially Facebook, it drained my reserves to just about nothing. It’s not a condemnation of the kinds of posts that crossed my feed. People are angry and scared, which they should be. But the sheer overwhelming amount of it was too much. I needed to find a balance, and now that I’ve found it (mostly), I need to maintain it.
What the exile hasn’t done is take away my feelings on the state of my country. I’m still filled with rage, both at the spineless and batshit bonkers administration but also at the people that put this regime in place. Perhaps even mostly at these people, especially the ones who are standing in the midst of the fire as it burns around them and still refuse to admit they were wrong. I will never have respect for anyone who supports this ideology, the behavior of this administration, despite the many times I’ve been told that I shouldn’t allow politics to impact my relationships with friends or family. To those people, to those who tout the whole “it’s just politics” rhetoric, the “politics isn’t personal” bullshit, I say the hell it isn’t. Politics is very personal. It’s personal when human rights are affected, when human fucking beings’ lives are impacted and endangered. To say it isn’t is little more than willful ignorance bolstered by racist and phobic ideology.
One of the things I hate most is when some idiot asks me why I’m so mad as a straight white woman “of a certain age”, a position that leaves me largely unaffected by most of the regime’s social policies. Yes, I am a straight white woman. I’m hyper aware of that privilege, the very existence of which is disgusting. But here’s the thing. I give a damn about people other than myself. I give a damn about the LGBTQIA+ community. I care about people with a skin color other than my own. I give a damn about human beings. So, yeah, I’m angry. I’m utterly disgusted at the way this regime and supporters of it can claim faith and then condemn entire swaths of humanity in the name of it. It’s a thought process I do not and never will understand. I do not understand being able to stand in one’s faith, look at a person of another skin color or another sexuality or another gender, and see them as other than human because of that skin color, sexuality, or gender.
What my exile has done has made me realize that even the strongest of us, of which I’ve always seen myself, have a breaking point. I reached mine, or at least came entirely too close to it. It’s weird how things can go badly in one area of your life, and that then bleeds over into other parts. That’s what reaching my saturation point did for me. It made me realize that I’ve spent a good portion of my life pushing aside stuff in the name of being “strong.” If I’m being real, there’s probably a part of that is a Gen X thing. It’s a pretty standard way of life for most of us of that generation, the feral children that we are. But old or not, this dog is learning new tricks, and lessons. One of which is that there is strength in recognizing that I have my limits. That sometimes even I can break. That dealing with stuff I should have a long time ago is a good thing, and that it’s never too late to do that.
So that’s the silver lining, I suppose.
People who say politics isn’t personal and who only care about issues that directly impact themselves usually say that so they won’t be criticized about their own bigoted or ignorant views about “others.” The only social media I’m involved with is blogging and my own little blog circle of decent people (and an occasional troll or two, lol).
Unfortunately for me, as an author, I need social media for marketing and networking. There’s just no way around that. That’s pretty much the sum of my interaction these days!!