Hope?: Learning to Trust Again in a Post-Bush Traumatic World

Strange thing, I have actually been feeling normal the last few days. After almost seven months of grief about my father's death filling most every nook and cranny in my psyche, this week there is no hole in my heart, no foggy confusion, no just staring at the refrigerator thinking that there must be something within it that will make it all better. There has been actual joy teeming through my body, hopefulness and a sense of possibility too. It is truly strange to feel normal.

But of course, because of my upbringing (I am an adult child of alcoholics and showbiz after all), I have also been waiting for the other shoe to drop. You know, that feeling where you reserve a small part of you to be on the ready, the all-alert, so that when the shit does hit the fan, you will not be knocked on your ass completely, but only partially. It's the part that says, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

Speaking of fools. George Bush. He is really leaving isn't he? In my mourning, I had almost forgotten that THIS was going on too. This hit me earlier this week. With the fog of my own confusion and grief lifted, I got back in touch with the fact that Obama is really here and Bush is really gone. Wow. Really? This is good news. I feel like I want to jump into a big old bowl of YAY and do the backstroke through the hope and possibility, and yet, this opens up a whole other can of worms, another place where letting my guard down may be difficult. After 8 years or trauma, abuse and reckless disregard to my country's foundation, how am I supposed to trust anything? And if I am willing to trust, am I still willing to question, you know, be a good citizen?

There is this thing called learned helplessness, and I hope that I, and this country, have not been pushed too far over the edge with chronic trauma to recover from it. When a person feels helpless or powerless in a chronic abusive situation (like an alcoholic family or 8 years of executive power and constitutional abuse), the victim may cope by just giving up. They think, 'Well this is just the way it is, and so I'm just going to go in the corner and eat a large bag of chips.' On some level that has been me these last eight years. I have felt utterly helpless under this regime and thought, 'What's the point, nothing will change anyway, so why should I fight?' I have been living a half-life as a citizen. I think that many of the citizens of this country have felt this way, even long before the Bush administration, and well I can't quite blame them. This country has been fucked up a long time. There is a lot of shit out there, and none of it looks easy to fix.

But looking at my own situation with my grief, I know one big important thing: I have choice. I can choose to armor myself, hide from life, and "feel" safe, by not risking myself emotionally or artistically anymore. Or I can let the healing balm of time work on me, and allow myself to see what is good, true and beautiful in my life and the world, and really take it in while knowing that life will be challenging and difficult at times too. There is no perfect world, no perfect life -- people die, people are cruel, people are greedy, AND people are generous, people love the best they can, and some evenings the sunset and rising moon are so damn beautiful, you can't even believe that you are lucky enough to witness such a sight.

Ultimately it is all a big mystery. We are here, on this big blue spinning ball, together. We have a new president who will do some good things, some not so good things and hopefully a couple of great things that will fill up our collective hearts enough to wake up the next day and face the next challenge. So, I'm going to dare to stop looking around for that other shoe to drop, open my heart and mind, and actually be present for this grand and historic moment.

Comments

[heylookitsdan]

Kelly-

The tragedy of any abusive relationship isn't the relationship itself but the aftermath... the mess... the inability to love, trust and find happiness again. I know how resilient you are. And I believe we as a country are just as resilient. Even living here in the south where some folks haven't gotten over the Civil War, I know that we are one nation... under God or not. We can, will and must bounce back. I have a 16 month old daughter that's counting on it.

-Pasternack

[perplexo]

It's been like 8 years of falling off a bicycle, getting hit by a train from time to time, having pianos and
safes falling on our heads amid a sea of hustles being worked by government and corporate hookups,
while young persons are serving two, three, four and five tours. The Big O has to hit the ground running.
Jobs and rebuilding our decaying country is primo. I was born a skeptic, turned cynic at age 3 and Im
willing to try a little hope. What if some of the old, execs who have had their pensions destroyed and
unemployed workers got together and fired up some of our steel plants and all were paid on shares of
the company, and what if OUR government bought their steel from these guys instead of France or Japan. Would that make us socialists or Commies or something? Thanks for the ray of hope, Kelly
Perplexo

[krocklin]

Yes the Bush Cabal consists of nothing but fools. But to leave it at that ignores the fact that a large segment of the country foolishly voted for him. And Democrats and the Media often foolishly went along with him.
Hence the difficulty in prosecuting him.

[Kelly Carlin-McCall - Huffpost Blogger]

Krocklin,

Now doubt you speak the truth. My point wasn't about his foolishness though, it was about our collective trauma, which started way before his foolishness. We are a people who have lost the ability to think for ourselves, and thus take necessary actions to recover to equilibrium.

May we all be healed from our lack of self-respo­nsibility, and stand up to all people and institutions that try and take away our free thinking.

Best

[MaryKathO]

Kelly: though sometimes your father came off as a big 'cynic', particularly in his stand-up routines, I always felt he was an un-abashed optimist with a wonderfully wise and sentimentalist view of the world. I can't help but think that as Obama's election and subsequent inauguration took place, he would be PUBLICLY scolding us for our sheer exhilaration, but PRIVATELY doing cartwheels at what we are about to see take place! That wonderful twinkle in his eye would have been positively COSMIC in it's brilliance! I only wish he were here to see it...

[Kelly Carlin-McCall - Huffpost Blogger]

MaryKathO,

You nailed it on the head!

Kelly

[cayuse]

I am a blue dog democrat, but I have much more conservative feelings. I will wait to see result of the Talk.

I confess I see a great difference between these two men. Maybe even RIGHT and WRONG. But I must Judge the Tree by the Fruit it Bares. News Media has made Reagan look great by repeating lies, it got Bush elected twice by lies. My guess the lies will be in the opposite direction on Obama, that will naturally reassure me he is doing well. I kind of see this too changing.

But a tax code that rewards the top 2% for contributing nothing to the economy, 2 wars, Katrina victims, injustice, and inequality are Bush legacies still out here still. I must see them go. Throwing cash in these dirctions will not fix America is keeps the legacies alive.

I am hopefull, just not holding hands with my wife who lost her jobs and I took $2 cut in pay and singing Kumbya, yet.

[Kelly Carlin-McCall - Huffpost Blogger]

Cayuse,

It is a fine line that we are all walking I think - holding hope and reality in our hands at the same time. But this is the work of adults - we must deal with what are the challenges, and not sink into despair, but use the highest level of creative thinking and bold action to help us jump to the next level of evolution for our country and this planet.

Old thinking will not gt us anything. But we must start somewhere so that we can then adjust our course as we go - that is my hope for this administration, flexibility of thought, willingness to try things and change course if necessary - it's how a species evolves.

[carole131]

Kelly, you are wise beyond your years. I, at 72, feel much the same as you do. Hope, excitement, incredible relief & gratitude to "whomever" for the outcome of this election, & although I know that Mr. Obama can't fix everything, I feel that he is sincere & determined. I have recently found out that I'm not the only one who gets choked up & teary-eyed when I see him on TV. Yes, we have suffered for these past 8 years. It's unbelievable how many people still think that Bush was a good president. He should be run out of Washington on a rail. I think that your Dad would have loved how everything turned out.

[jcorrington]

Second that Carol! Perfect description Kelly.

[Kelly Carlin-McCall - Huffpost Blogger]

Carole131,
I guess what I was truly hoping to convey is that it is now OUR responsibility to recover from what ever low point we have reached within ourselves, so that we can be prepared to move forward into a new direction. We cannot depend on Obama or the government to solve everything. They cannot. We can only make this democracy stronger by opening our own hearts and minds to what is possible by thinking differently and changing our behavior. That is the only way change happens.

Thank you for appreciation. And I think you are right, my dad would have been happy and of course wary too. I am missing his take on it all.