Anger Is Exhausting
I had a bit of a meltdown last week. On Wednesday, after what felt like a month-long marathon of “school’s out” events, I told the kids (a just-graduated high school senior and a high school junior) that they could not go out that night unless they had cleaned their bedrooms and shared bathroom. For the record, that request was eminently reasonable; these spaces were about to be declared Superfund sites.
What was less reasonable was that, after the kids had tackled these chores, I announced that they had not been done to my standards, that everyone was clearly exhausted, and that no one was going anywhere. I then loaded the dishwasher extremely loudly, which is apparently how I do violence.
The truth was, I later realized with a flood of shame (it’s super-embarrassing to be a mediator who loses it) that I was the one who was exhausted. And what I most needed, I explained as part of my family-wide apology tour, was A Night Off from Worry. I needed to go to bed at, say, 7:30 pm, and for that to happen, I needed both children to be safely at home for a change. My math skills occupy a vexing zone: not strong enough to dazzle, but perfectly strong enough to understand that driving is, by far, the most dangerous thing that any of us do.
Why was I so tired? At first I blamed the graduation whirlwind. Then I realized the exhaustion was older than that. I blew my top on Wednesday, but I’ve been various levels of angry for nearly ten years.
It started on November 8, 2016, Election Day. I’d dressed myself and my kids in thrift-store “pantsuits” not because I was the biggest Hillary Clinton fan, but because I was quite sure that America, with its deep-seated love of meritocracy1, would pick someone qualified—a whip-smart, hyper-prepared former Senator and Secretary of State—over someone so manifestly unqualified: a crooked real estate developer/TV personality. I was gutted to learn otherwise.
It was not in my nature to write off 46.1% of American voters as sexist and/or racist, so my anger in those early days turned largely inward: What had I—and my like-minded friends—failed to understand? What did we need to change, stat?
In very short order, though, Trump himself proceeded to piss me off: family separation, the Muslim travel ban, withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, a sustained attack on the Affordable Care Act, withdrawal from the JCPOA —and right after the respite brought by Biden’s win in 2020—freakin’ January 6th.
A partial list of other infuriators (not really a word, but it’s handy): the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, Biden’s deluded decision to run for a second term, his many enablers, the choice of a coronation vs. a competition, the fact that 49.8% of my fellow voters chose Trump again, knowing full well who he is, and the historic harms—to so many vulnerable groups of people and to America’s standing in the world—that Trump has already done in his second term.
I've spent the better part of a decade seething. It’s a righteous anger—Trump is the most corrupt president we’ve ever had, and his administration has put so many people at risk2—but fighting the good fight is also completely draining.
So that I can go back to loading the dishwasher like a normal person, I’m taking three days off: one to climb a mountain with Ulla, one to clean my house, and one to weed the flower beds with my new hoe. (It’s a birthday present from Chris, and while I’m sure it’s a fine gardening implement, I’m also certain he chose it for the wordplay alone).
Thank you for reading and see you next week,
Kate
Image credits: Kate Gace Walton
Quaint, right?
Some of the questions/reminders that have been on my monitor since November 6th, 2024, the day after Trump’s second win:
Be kind to yourself, Kate!