WHO ME, WORRIED?

Hell, yes I’m worried. In the days before the Orange Man, I used to worry about little things. At the time I considered my worries worth worrying about.  I used to worry about not worrying—like if I didn’t pay attention to my cares and anxieties they would grow like sea monkeys and surround me. Now, I can’t even remember what I had to worry about.

The other day I got my worry box out to see what it was I worried about. What were my fears in the pre-DT era? I can tell you they were absurdly small things. I won’t bore you with my paltry scraps of paper stuffed in that box. I wrote them down and put them in the box because it made me feel better—like I’d passed my worries on. I put my trust in the infinite wisdom of the Universe. I knew that things would sort themselves out. I could relax.

Right now, I need a box the size of a refrigerator for all my concerns. I’m considering clearing out the coat closet and turning it into the worry box. I’ll write my worries on scraps of paper, open the door, and throw them into the deep recesses of the closet. Then I got to thinking about the closet. Is that where I’m going to have to live for the next four years, hiding behind my anxieties and waiting, endlessly waiting, for that knock on the door and the storm troopers to take me away?

There are so many things, big things, to worry about that I can’t sleep. Every dystopian scenario from books and movies run through my head. I try to come up with contingency plans but can’t. I have never in my life felt so overwhelmed that I couldn’t come up with a Plan A, Plan B and Plan C. I am a planner. I used to think that I could handle any emergency with reasonable calmness, to look at it with a clarity that allowed me to function well in a crisis. I don’t have a plan for a post-dystopian DT world.

I don’t even know where to begin. I have a passport and a Rand McNally road atlas. Will I be able to stay in my homeland? Will I know when to cut my losses and run? Where in the world can I go? Where is the port in the storm? What about my elderly parents will they be safe or will they get scooped up too because they are guilty by association. If we all run how will they get their medications? What do we do about our houses, our children’s education, our bank accounts?

In the comfort of pre-DT, we couldn’t see why people didn’t run away from the brutality of dictators. Why didn’t they just leave everything behind and get the hell out while the getting was good? Because most of them couldn’t.  I like to think I’ll be able to run when the times comes, but will I? Will I wait it out and hope that reasonable, kind, people will keep us safe, will not allow us to be interned into harsh camps where we’ll get the gayness beat out of us, starved, sick, our humanity dropping away because it’s about survival of the fittest now. Will we have the fortitude to hang on and pray that one day the madness will end and we’ll be set free?

The only answer I have is—I don’t know. So I let my worry consume me and I wait for a day that may never come again. A day when I sleep without nightmares and I don’t worry when I wake.

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