You Are Allowed To Feel All Of This

 A letter to all of us who are exhausted, outraged, and still here.

I'm writing to you about something I feel in my body and in my soul.

The exhaustion.

Not tiredness. Exhaustion. The kind that settles into your bones. The kind that is still there after a full night of sleep. The kind that makes ordinary things feel heavier than they should.

I feel it. And I know you feel it too.

We are carrying something enormous right now. And most of us are carrying it without anyone acknowledging the weight of it.

So I want to start there. Before the call to action. Before anything else.

You are allowed to feel all of this.

The outrage. The exhaustion. The powerlessness. The confusion about why they keep getting away with it. The fear of giving up. The shame of what our country has become. The worry for our grandchildren.

All of it. At the same time. Without having to choose between grief and action, between anger and tenderness, between fighting and resting.

You are allowed to hold all of it.

That is what I want to say first.

What We Are Actually Carrying

Let me name it, because I think we need to hear it said out loud.

We are carrying outrage. Real, earned, clear outrage at what is happening in our country and in the world. Outrage at systems that protect the powerful and silence everyone else. Outrage at a war that no one wanted except those who can profit from it. Outrage at the fact that they keep getting away with it.

We are carrying exhaustion. The exhaustion of vigilance. Of waking up every morning and bracing for the next thing. Of caring deeply in a moment that seems designed to wear us down.

We are carrying powerlessness. The particular grief of watching things happen that you cannot stop. Of knowing what is right and watching the wrong thing happen anyway.

We are carrying confusion. Why do they get away with it? How is this still happening? What is wrong with the people who don't see what we see?

We are carrying fear. The fear of giving up. The fear of staying strong. The fear that it won't be enough. The fear that we are not enough.

We are carrying shame. For our country. For what is being done in our name. For the innocent people dying in a war that no one can justify.

We are carrying dismay. For our grandchildrens. For the world they are inheriting. For the question they might one day ask us: Gran, what did you do?

This is what we are carrying. And it is a lot. And you are not weak for feeling the weight of it.

We Are Not Alone In This

Here is the thing I want you to know more than anything else.

You are not alone in this.

The woman next to you at the grocery store is carrying it. Your neighbor, who seems fine, is carrying it. Your friend who stopped talking about politics is carrying it differently. The woman you follow online who seems to have it together is carrying it.

We are all carrying it.

And one of the most important things we can do right now is stop pretending we are not. Stop performing okayness for each other. Stop suffering in the quiet.

Be together in this. In the outrage. In the exhaustion. In the not-knowing what comes next.

Encourage each other to keep going. Be kind. Be non-judgmental. We do not always know the particular darkness someone is weighed down by. What looks like apathy might be overwhelm. What looks like anger might be grief. What looks like giving up might be someone who is just trying to survive the week.

We need each other right now. Not to fix each other. Just to witness each other. To say: I see you. I feel it too. Keep going.

What To Do With All Of This

The question everyone is sitting with.

Where do we put the anger? How do we channel the outrage without burning ourselves down?

Here is what I have come to:

Name it first. Before you do anything else. Name what you are actually feeling. Out loud, or on paper, or to someone you trust. Not the sanitized version. The real version. I am furious. I am terrified. I am exhausted. I am ashamed. Naming it is not weakness. It is the first act of honesty, and honesty is where all real action begins.

Speak it. Find your voice in this. Not the voice that performs outrage for an audience. Your actual voice. The one that knows what it knows, that has something true to say, that does not need to be perfect to matter. Speak in your relationships. Speak in your community. Speak with your representatives by phone. Speak it somewhere real.

Steady yourself first. You cannot act effectively from panic. You cannot sustain action from a place of constant crisis. Before you make decisions, before you respond, before you pour yourself out, get steady. Move your body. Put your feet on the ground. Breathe all the way down. Ask yourself: what do I actually know right now? Start from there.

Anchor deep within yourself. Come back to what you know. To your values. To your body. To the things that remind you who you are when the noise gets too loud. This is not escapism. This is maintenance. The kind that allows you to stay in the fight for years, not just weeks.

Find your specific form of action. Not everyone's version. Yours. The one you can sustain. The one that is true to who you are and what you have to give.

Step Away. Come Back. Repeat.

I want to say something that I think women need permission to hear.

You are allowed to step away for a while.

Not to give up. Not to abandon the fight. But to rest. To come back to yourself. To let your nervous system recover enough to be useful again.

Peek at the news if you have to, but come back to yourself. Don't bury yourself in mindless things that numb you without restoring you. Don't try to convince someone who isn't open. That is not where your energy is best spent right now.

Stay present. Be yourself. Be happy when you can.

That last one is important. Be happy when you can. Savor the moments that are sweet. Your face in the wind. The warm sun. A meal with someone you love. Your grandchild's laugh. The particular beauty of an ordinary morning.

This is not betrayal. This is not privilege. This is not looking away.

This is how we stay.

The women who last in difficult times are not the ones who never rest. They are the ones who know how to come back. Who can feel the weight of the world and also feel the sun on their face, and hold both at the same time, without letting either one cancel the other.

That is what anchored looks like in a body.

We Are In This Together

I am 76 years old. I have been through enough to know that dark times do not last forever. And I have been through enough to know that they do not end on their own.

They end because people refuse to give up. Because women, in particular, have always found a way to carry the grief and still move. To feel the fear and still show up. To be exhausted and still make the call, still show up at the march, still say the true thing in the room that would prefer a comfortable lie.

We are in this together.

Be kind to each other. Be non-judgmental. We do not know the darkness someone is carrying.

Encourage each other. Not with toxic positivity. With real solidarity. I see you. I feel it too. You are not alone. Keep going.

And come back to yourself. Again and again. After every hard week. After every devastating headline. After every moment of despair.

Come back to what you know.

To your face in the wind.

To the warm sun.

To the knowledge that you are here, and you are still fighting, and that matters.

Over to you:

What are you feeling right now that you haven't let yourself name yet?

And what is one small thing, one true thing, you can do today that is yours to do?

Send me an email at [email protected] and let me know.  We're in this together.

Resources

Call your representatives every day: 5calls.org gives you the script and the number. Takes five minutes.

Find local action and marches:indivisible.org

Lift up a military family you know. Bring a meal. Send a text. Let them know they are not invisible.

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