So many friends this week feeling unsettled. Headaches. Restless nights. Upset stomachs. It’s amazing what havoc this new president is doing to some of us both mentally and physically, his first week in office.
Each time I walk by a television screen and see him with a pen I get nervous.
The tweets, the wall, women's rights, human rights, immigration, a disdain for anyone who doesn’t agree with him, a sad need to prove how much he is better than anyone at everything...there’s lots more, you know. It’s kind of exhausting.
Here is the weird thing — over the past week as I too have trouble sleeping, my mind begins to wander and it heads into weird territory.
You know the places I’m talking about; the ones where the memories make you laugh really loud out of embarrassment or make your stomach do that uneasy somersault-elevator thing. The places that make you close your eyes extra hard and then open them again, then you feel relief.
Donald Trump becoming our president has taken me to some places this week.
He took me back to that time I changed the grades on my report card in high school, where I turned a few F’s into B’s. I fooled people. For a few weeks. It was easy! Until a guidance counselor from school called the house when I wasn’t home to talk with my mom about upcoming the summer school schedule.
The time when I was about ten years old, hopping into the way back of my friend’s station wagon, when her dad said that he hoped he could still drive, seeing as how I was weighing down the back of his car with all that extra weight.
How about when I tried out for the dance team in high school having no real prior dance experience other than that routine to “Me and My Teddy Bear” at age five? I was completely out of my element. It showed.
Oh, when I crashed my dad’s car into my mom’s car, then just drove away and fled the scene terrified of what was to come.
All the times my old boss would refer to me as his “girl.”
The time at that guy’s apartment, when I had zero intention of having sex but did, after giving up and giving into an exhausting battle of his hands, mouth and body. Blech.
Sure, these incidents have crossed my mind over the years. And I’m not saying, “poor me, the president is putting these thoughts in my head.” I’m just saying it’s interesting that they all came to visit around the same time.
We know he’s a bully. We know he thinks he can do anything he wants to do. Now he’s the president.
Let’s not let this person invade our thoughts at night and take us to not so nice places we would rather forget. Let’s keep having open conversations about how we’re feeling. Share with each other. Lean on each other.
Maybe next week will be better. Maybe he won’t have a pen in his hand so many times? Maybe he’ll get busted like I did over the grades, or called out on his complete lack of experience like I did after the dance team tryouts. Or flee the scene in a panic alla the double-parent-car-crash.
I’m gonna keep on dancing. Tonight I’ll try and enjoy it.
Lori’s website, Drawn to the ‘80s, is where her 5-year-old drew the hit music of the 1980’s. Her blog, Once Upon a Product, is where she writes about beauty products, her Mick Jagger obsession and teendom in the 1980’s.