Day 79: Life Doesn't Discriminate...

Today is Thanksgiving, and many of my friends have been posting on social media, saying what they're thankful for.  The lists are sweet and touching, and I want to post something similar, but the truth is that I can't find that place of gratitude this year.  

Don't get me wrong.  There are things in my life that I love beyond reason, but as 2016 draws to a close I find that I am not capable of simply appreciating what I love.  Instead I am filled with the desperate need to cling to what is dearest to me.  To arm myself against whatever might come along to snatch it away from me.  I do not feel grateful this year.  Instead I feel ferociously defensive, like a wolf mother crouching over her cubs, snarling at the world that threatens them.

In Hamilton, an American musical, there's a song sung by Aaron Burr called Wait for It.  I've got a lot of complicated feelings about that song, but I cannot deny that I get chills every time I hear it.  The chorus resonates so strongly with me that it makes my heart hurt.

Life doesn't discriminate
Between the sinners and the saints
It takes and it takes and it takes
And we keep living anyway
We rise and we fall
And we break
And we make our mistakes...

 

It's true, isn't it?  

 

I know I'm not the only one who has been feeling the impact of how impartial life is.  We have watched so many of our iconic artists die recently--some far too soon.  We have watched a string of incidents in which innocent people lost their lives at the hands of the police.  We have seen a rise in hate crimes among the population in just the past few weeks.  We have seen a Neo-Nazi group with a fancy new label actually join mainstream American politics.  We are currently watching state governments unleash deadly levels on violence on peaceful protestors in the name of the almighty oil dollar.  And that's in addition to the traumas that are, perhaps, more normalized for some of us, but no less painful.  The family members who have grown sick.  The friends and loved ones who are struggling against too many trials.  The wars, the diseases, and the never ending list of freak accidents that we hear about and pray never to experience.

Life does not discriminate between the sinners and the saints.  It doesn't care if you're good or evil, if you bring joy or sorrow, if you are alone or surrounded by people who love you.  To be alive is to be constantly at risk--constantly on the verge of losing everything you love.  I am too aware of that verge to be grateful.  Gratitude is an emotion of comfort, and I cannot find comfort anywhere within me.

This year, I am not grateful

This year, I am not counting my blessings.

This year I am full of a screaming defiance for the whims of a life that gives and takes in unequal measure and with no regard for merit.  I know that my insignificant human denial will change nothing, but it's all I have left to cling to when the specter of loss seems to loom over everyone and everything.  

It isn't really acceptance.  But at least it's better than despair.