The social media algorithms want me to be angry, and there’s certainly no shortage of things to rage over. Headlines are purposely alarmist to get clicks: I know this. I used to be in that line of work. I used to live in a place of perpetual anger, and while I made decent money doing it, it came at the expense of my mental health and relationships.
But if the political situation we are currently in is truly alarmist, what then?
The problem is, it’s hard for me to even discern what is real and what is a bid for engagement with the lowest hanging fruit.
***
I look at news headlines now and feel panic rise up like bile. But every moment I spend in fury is stealing the joy I experience with my daughter. I blinked, and my tiny little baby started pulling herself up onto furniture and sprouted two bottom teeth. Her infectious smile has never known fear or sadness, and I want it to stay that way as long as possible.
I feel conflicted when I see posts and articles asking me not to look the other way while terrible things happen. To contact my senators, to show up and protest. And those things are important.
But Millie falls asleep nursing and my gaze is diverted. I forget what I’m supposed to be angry about. I don’t want to be angry at all. I feel guilty that I’m not doing nearly enough, that I can’t be the functional mother my daughter deserves, as well as the citizen my country needs. It’s an age-old conflict, but these times are “unprecedented,” and once again I fall headfirst into an oblivion of joyous despair (yes, apparently that’s a thing that exists when you’re postpartum).
They say that prolactin, the hormone released when breastfeeding, makes you more sensitive. My antidepressants have the effect of numbing my emotions. So maybe, with those two factors at once, I am responding to current events as a normal person should?
***
I don’t know how to be and do everything at once, and perhaps I’m not supposed to- we’re not supposed to know every awful thing that happens in the world 30 seconds after it happens. But we do, and our families still need us and our friends want to hang out and there’s a work project due at the end of the week and round and round we go, on this toxic merry-go-round we can’t ever get off.
I will feed my baby and say a prayer for our nation and its leaders. I will fold laundry and change a diaper and remember Philippians 4:6: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (easier said than done).
I am first a servant of the Lord. I am Millie’s mama. And then I am a citizen. I do what I can.
***
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