Thoughts I wish were gone thoughts but aren’t
Lately I’ve been feeling a lot of things: apathetic, anxious, depressed, angry, hopeless… but mostly I just feel so much that I feel numb. The thoughts race so fast that they combine to form static. The only thing I seem to have the capacity to think is: fuck. How did we end up here?
I ponder bodily autonomy and what it means to be a human being. I think about how a bundle of cells growing inside me has equal if not more rights than I would now, if I lived in the wrong state. I think about how there is a higher instance of ectopic pregnancies in women (like me) who have IUDs (Furlong, 2002), and the pit in my stomach sinks deeper. I know the overturn of Roe v. Wade allows for abortion in cases that are life threatening to the mother, but I can’t help but wonder: how many healthcare providers will have to watch their patients bleed out while double checking that the life saving procedure and the circumstances under which it was performed falls within legal bounds?
I reflect on when I learned about the Supreme Court in my high school AP government class and how Supreme Court cases set a precedent for future court cases. As I think about what the future holds for us, I can’t keep my thoughts from spiraling. If it was possible to overturn a decision regarding literal health care for people with uteruses, what comes next? Obergefell v. Hodges? Brown v. Board of Education even?
I contemplate the waking nightmare that is living in a climate crisis. The world could warm up to 5°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century (Tollefson, 2022), the ocean is acidifying (Littschwager 2019), deforestation is still occurring at an alarming rate, and yet… we are pumping C02 into the atmosphere like there is no tomorrow, caught in a capitalist fever dream where economic growth, whatever the cost, is justified and encouraged. While I take fewer showers, sort my recycling, and limit my meat consumption, Nestle burns its plastic waste and companies like P&G, Mondelez, and Pepsi offer false solutions for the pollution they are responsible for (BFFP 2022). The negligible effects of my efforts weigh heavily on me. When I think about the future, I feel no hope, just an overwhelming sense of despair and gratitude that I will be dead and gone before the consequences of reckless capitalism and greed come to a head… before shit hits the fan, if you will. How could I possibly consider bringing an entire existence into a world I have no hope for?
I think about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and how arbitrary unalienable rights are, and have always been to the powers that be. Welcome to America, land of the free, where we regulate women’s bodies more than guns. Welcome to America, home of the brave, where we give more of a fuck about a fetus than the 400,000+ children in a broken foster care system on any given day (Foster Care, 2021), or the 83 people that have been injured or killed in the 27 school shootings that have occurred in 2022 alone (Education Week, 2022), or Black Americans who were sitting at home (Breonna Taylor), playing with a toy in a park (Tamir Rice), or complying with the police (George Floyd).
I usually suppress these thoughts, and I recognize my privilege in being able to do so. But I also think that focusing on everything that is wrong creates a cycle of negativity. I like to believe we attract what we focus energy on, so I try my best to focus on the positivity that I can create within my bubble of existence. To bring gratitude, beauty, and love to the world around me (and not necessarily the whole world). However, with recent events, the grief that usually churns deep in the crevasses of my soul has bubbled to the surface.
As one does, I took my grief to the mountains. I washed it in the frigid churning waters of a river somewhere that was everywhere and nowhere at once. I offered it to the mosquitoes and the biting flies. I drowned it in tequila. I laid it out to dry in the sun. I crammed it into climbing shoes that are a size too small and dragged it with me up granite slabs and cracks. But at the end of the day, it lay curled up at my feet like a faithful companion. With nothing left to do, I held it, embraced it, and washed it once more, this time with my tears.
References:
BFFP. (2022, March 31). Missing the mark: Unveiling corporate false solutions to the plastic crisis. Break Free From Plastic. Retrieved July 12, 2022, from https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org/missing-the-mark-unveiling-corporate-false-solutions-to-the-plastic-crisis/
Dvořák J, Toman A. Ektopická gravidita při IUS (Mirena) - kazuistika [Intrauterine system (Mirena) and ectopic pregnancy--case report]. Ceska Gynekol. 2012 Oct;77(5):414-5. Czech. PMID: 23116345.
Education Week. (2022, July 7). School shootings this year: How many and where. Education Week. Retrieved July 12, 2022, from https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-this-year-how-many-and-where/2022/01
Foster Care. Children's Rights. (2021, February 26). Retrieved July 12, 2022, from https://www.childrensrights.org/newsroom/fact-sheets/foster-care/#:~:text=On%20any%20given%20day%2C%20there,for%20five%20or%20more%20years.
Furlong LA. Ectopic pregnancy risk when contraception fails. A review. J Reprod Med. 2002 Nov;47(11):881-5. PMID: 12497674.
Littschwager, D. (2019, June 20). Ocean acidification. Smithsonian Ocean. Retrieved July 12, 2022, from https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/ocean-acidification#:~:text=Even%20though%20the%20ocean%20is,the%20last%2050%20million%20years.
Tollefson, J. (2020, April 22). How hot will earth get by 2100? Nature News. Retrieved July 12, 2022, from https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01125-x