This morning in church the blaring of several phone alarms went off at the same time alerting everyone in the church to an Amber alert, and interrupting our Psalm reading. The service pushed on despite this.
Last Tuesday my pastor texted me to check in on me, since I'm an educator. I had heard about the event mere minutes before, after clicking on a loud and angry tweet from Chris Evans. I'd had the chance to scroll through enough messages to know that there was another school shooting. That young people and possibly their teachers were dead. That people were once more outraged about our lax gun laws. That other people blamed everything but guns so that they could maintain a freedom given them by cis, straight, white, landowning men who understood nothing about mental health, the ongoing impacts of racism and enslavement, or the inequity their colonial claims would cause to their children's children's children.
And that's all I can tell you about that story. Because I am so damn tired of this that I sought no further details.
I told Pastor Katie that I hadn't really processed. Not because the information was fresh, or too complex, or shocking, but because my initial reaction was one of resignation.
One more thing to add to the pile. One more hardship other people were dealing with that I can directly impact in exactly zero ways. One more thought to process in a brain that had been overstimulated for hours and really just wanted to rest.
So I didn't process. Instead I told Katie about all of my immediate problems. My boss's boss resigning. My near constant exposure to covid on a daily basis and adjoining fear that I'm gonna give it to someone else. My exhaustion at working a second job not because I need the money, but because that same overstimulated brain doesn't organize time well enough to give me the ability to say "I can't, I'm busy."
I have always worried over my nature to be focused on my immediate problems rather than those across the planet. As an adult it's been easier to acknowledge that I can only hold so much. That I can't constantly think about all the problems around the world, or the US, or even my own city, and juggle my day to day. It's too much to hold.
I've learned to accept that while my view of things in my life tends to run big picture, I can't big picture the planet. Because I'll want to solve everything. Because hyper focus means I can't solve those things and remember to eat at the same time. Because I have kids in my daily life that have problems that I can help solve, and if I don't at least do that, I'm doing nothing better than pushing a boulder up a hill just to have it roll down before I reach the top.
So I know that I can't individually change gun violence in the United States. But at least I used to care. Or pause. Or anything.
I've talked pretty openly here about my mental health and struggle around apathy and depression. Since I started meds about 4 years ago, that apathy has changed from a several weeks long occurance once or twice a year, to occasional bad days that I can mostly remind myself will be short lived and manageable.
The apathy I feel now is different. Depression feels like being dropped down a hole and left there with no one to care. This feels like someone put out my pilot light.
I want to be angry, furious, outraged on behalf of those kids, and their teachers, and the families who once again know a sorrow too deep to name, and the teenager who was left so without resources and support that grotesque and unnecessary violence were the only way he felt he could name his need.
I want to flare and flash and be a fire that knows no end until kids in this country can feel safe at school, and in churches, and in their own communities.
I want to use anger for its intended purpose: to notice a problem and create change for the better.
But I can't.
Cause I'm not angry.
I'm just disappointed.
Disappointed that I know exactly how this argument will end.
Disappointed that goddamn Donald Trump is using this as another opportunity to gain attention, and people are letting him.
Disappointed that an Amber Alert is so common place that not only did I know what the alarm on my phone was, I didn't give it more than a cursory glance before turning it off.
And I'm just so tired of yelling at a wall that straight up doesn't care.
Disappointment is a word we use for feelings related to sadness and broken trust. Feelings that generally lead someone feeling them to hide, disengage, or try to numb themselves from that painful feeling.
Disappointment does not burst into flame. It doesn't give you more air with which to yell and scream and fight back. It folds in on you, and it demands rest.
So, for today at least, the wall wins. I have no new words to yell. I have no anger to hurl. I have no energy for this fight today.
Today I rest, and mourn, and find peace and strength in the amazing friendships and community I have been given. So that hopefully tomorrow, or maybe the next day, I'll be ready to be angry again.
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