Collaborate and listen. Damn 90s had some important foreshadowing lyrics.
I'm not Ice, but I have a brand new edition. Yea...I went there. I spent the last 24+ Hours trapped in my own downward spiral. Thoughts of 9/11 haunted me as I watched domestic terrorists (and after being scolded / schooled I don't give a rats ass which radical side they were from).
I was unable to function. I received multiple news alerts, which typically I ignore but when I turned on the TV, I saw people invading - yes invading - the Capitol. Hubs called on his way home and I couldn't even speak full sentences.
DC was my home for almost a decade, it is my city. No disrespect to Philly and my beloved MTL. I fell in love with DC years ago, starting with Alexandria where my second company was born. The "start up" that I was part of. It was where I moved to only knowing one person - my Will, my gay BFF. I started with nothing there...we shared a studio for the first month before we landed in our apartment that quickly turned into a co-op. I was forced into being a grownup and buying the place (because I hated moving that much, so I made the means work).
It's a city, yes, but after years in the NYC area it always felt like a small town to me. It was home away from home. So much that I often forgot the dangers but was reminded when friends were mugged or bad things happened. But I was mostly well watched and cared for, which is a good thing because I may have been older, but I was living single and alone and quite frankly a lot of the time, immaturely and stupid.
I did a lot of growing there. I grew strong and weak, in equal measure. But, I loved it. I loved giving up my car, I loved walking anywhere I needed to go. Walking became my thing. It's where I trained for my 60 mile walk...you can search back to those days. I was cheered by security and I left my office which was 1 1/2 blocks from the Capitol on New Jersey Ave - ah, the irony for the Jersey girl to work on New Jersey Avenue.
When I trained at night, my walk started on NJ Ave where I walked straight up to the Capitol, behind it to the Senate building (Russell) and past the Supreme Court, over to the House side (Rayburn) and back through the Capitol grounds...past the reflecting pool and down the Mall to the Washington monument.
That was my main path for 6 solid months. I even did a Flat Stanley project for Emily taking him through all these places.
To see what transpired yesterday, broke my heart and my soul. I never thought I could be as or more broken than 9/11. Watching the sheer horror of the animals scaling the walls with ropes, breaking the windows of that building. It was a horror movie to me. I needed to process. You see, if living there and walking there wasn't enough, it's not that easy to get into the Capitol. I know this because I held multiple work events there. I joke that I'm on the terrorist list given my airport security experiences but I can assure you, to get in is no small task. I don't know why it was that easy for these infidels to break through. That was the hardest to overcome. But it might as well have been watching someone break into my home.
That's sacred ground to me...it is to many. It should be. You don't just waltz into the Capitol or get into offices. Those are typically locked. It's a right you earn. Is it the people's house as they yelled on TV? It is. But there's a privilege to be in there. You wouldn't Desecrate it. You feel the history and power when you pass security and walk into the rotunda. If you don't feel that, you're dead inside. Not sorry, that's fact.
I watched for about 8 solid hours the horror...fascinated that my own family who I didn't speak to until today didn't even seem to know what took place. And today, I was paralyzed and numb.
I reached across party lines, in the hopes of gaining understanding of why other Americans thought this was justified. I was met with hatred, name calling, being told it was all staged and fake. I lost hope and honestly, I didn't function for work.
After all that, a call with my therapist, I felt stable but still lacking. I logged back into Facebook to get my latest thrashing of insults and accusations. I stumbled upon (and we all know that FB feed is fucked) someone bitching that someone else was being an anti-vaxer on their feed (ugh). But as I read the comments, it struck me that something was off. The guy's page, he's a smart guy. Very smart. The commenter was someone who's a known ball buster but has a good heart. Determined, I reached out to the ball buster and asked what his actual post and question was. I asked, in the words of Max Goodwin, how I could help. He sent me the post and explained he was being legit because the vaccine is made with new science and tech. I'm not a doctor, researcher or scientist but I am in biotech Comms, so I gave him the best answers I could. He thanked me profusely and explained he really was just asking a question but get why someone would think he was coming across otherwise.
It was such a stupid misunderstanding at the worst possible time. We had a great conversation. I could've left it there but the guy he was asking...I knew it wasn't his typical response, I've called on him many of times for insight myself. So, I figured, what the hell, I've been called a million bad things this morning in my quest of understanding, I would let him know.
He was taken aback with a simple "oh" as a response. I let him know that the guy was asking a legit question because of his respect for his intelligence and knowledge. We also had a great conversation.
As I said to both of them...we're all getting nowhere fast talking AT each other instead of TO each other. And for a brief moment today (and a startling one to my husband who saw me smiling my crazy I'm going to lose it smile), a small victory.
And it dawned on me, there's an easy way to start being part of the solution. Stop. Collaborate. Listen. Yea - it's simple lyrics from Vanilla Ice who performed at that orange dumbass NYE gathering. But it's smart. Just stop. Fucking listen. Stop waiting to talk over someone or your opportunity to be right.
We're all here together. We have to be over the right and wrong. As our can't be Prez soon enough said yesterday "enough is enough is enough." And damn that Hamilton but "if you stand for nothing, what will you fall for?"
So, here's me, making the step or the pledge to not only listen but work to solve problems where I can or be there to help.
And yes, holy shit, did I think 2021 would come in this hard? FFS, it's a week in!
Nope. But here we are and here I go.
Let's do this.
XO
G
