There Is Still Room for Hope

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are:

daylight ~ see ~ bug ~ collapse ~ woods

They were submitted by: https://Bakinginatornado.com

_____________

A lot of us look ahead and see the potential of a societal collapse.

I'm certainly guilty of that myself, but Im trying to get better. Obviously I get that line of thinking, though. We're in a post normal world now. The damage done to our climate and the related side effects from progressing climate change and atmospheric heating cannot be undone. Experts agree now that even if we went to net zero carbon emissions tomorrow, we couldnt erase the changes we are facing (and will continue to endure) before the end of this century, and we aren't even close to any sort of net zero emissions even as many countries are beginning to come together for timelines of when that may happen. Raging fires, ice storms, heat domes, lack of water sources, billionaires looking to space for the answers... it's all here to stay in our life times. Combine that with growing fascism in multiple countries, increasing street violence in those countries, civil wars, our fears about Afghanistan and the Taliban, weaponized unreality, the culmination of decades of science denial for the sake of profit, and a going on 2 year fight against a pandemic, and it's no wonder so many of us cannot see a future that isn't at least somewhat apocalyptic. Add in that it doesn't help when even the more "liberal" parties make promises of going back to easier times, promises that sound so good to many of us in theory but are outright lies in the face of climate change science, and you have a pretty heady mix of negativity. Yes, even without Trump or any of the other shit of even the last ten years, we would still be pretty royally screwed when it comes to being able to live and breathe easily from this point on. And constant promises of returning to a state of normal make it harder for folks to consider bracing for an ever changing future.

What I think we're getting wrong though is an end to everything as we know it being the immutable result of all this. I think, or at least want to hope, we can do better than that.

I live in a hurricane zone so I tend to keep some things on hand for emergencies, but I've made lists even on this blog for resources in case we do experience black and brown outs here and how to live off the land or pack a bug out back if things were to get really rough. I think there's a lot to be said for preparation, for the anxiety relief that tends to come with knowing you can weather most storms with a little know-how, work, and a few tucked away items.

But I think we also have to focus on the potential for rebuilding something new and better and to do that through mutual aid and community building. If there was one strong take away from the last couple of years at least, I would hope it's that we can, in fact, come together to handle most things for each other even while our politicians fight over which party can do as little as possible for the populace and get away with it. We can come together and build communities and mutual aid networks. We can be the hope we want to see in the world.

And perhaps most importantly, we can adapt.

Even if you just consider the changes that have come since 1900 when industrialization here in the u.s. was in full swing, our country grew, we got the automobile industry, plane travel, telephones and tvs and all manner of improved methods to listen to music, space travel, undersea exploration, the internet, computers that were as big as houses with barely any capabilities to computers we carry in our pockets. We've worked on defining human rights and adapting what those should be and who they should apply to. We've survived world wars and pandemics and companies hell bent on profit over people. And while some of us have done so with less grace than others here we are considerably better now than 100 years ago and still changing. It's entirely understandable to look at the last several years at the very least (and much of history for many folks) and feel like the pendulum has swung too far into hate and division and greed and destruction to be corrected, but the future is still wide open, and we could still make it swing the other direction with the right kind of work.

I'd love to run off into the woods and hang out with my pet alligator in a bayou hut far from civilization. I even painted myself one to look at every now and then. But there's still daylight at the end of this tunnel if we choose to make it that far, and I have to believe we can do better. There's no less reason to be prepared, but for all of us and everyone that comes after us, we have to build something different than we have, than we've ever had.

The challenge is in the not giving up, in seeing this through, in doing more than voting and going back to the day to day. We have to build not subsist on the same bullshit we've been fed all these decades. The challenge is in reimagining everything we know to be unchangeable and building something that works and not just a marginal step at best that will be undone every 4 to 8 years. We have to listen to the folks hurt by existing systems and who have always done their work to protect the world, and we have a limited time to stop questioning them and hear what they're saying.

We have to take "impossible" off the table.

There's still more than enough time for the future we have to be one of building a new way forward and not like you know being cannibals that eat each other to survive in a Mad Max landscape of hellfire and water shortages. We don't have to fight each other to the death for a bit of water. We just have to believe in how much better we can be and make it happen.

____________________

Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Baking In A Tornado https://bakinginatornado.com/

On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

What TF Sarah https://crazymamallama.blogspot.com/

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

Tomorrow

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump

That’s her heart right now feeling like it might explode out of her chest. She’s sitting in the back of a dark SUV between two muscley guys in expensive-looking, hand-tailored suits and mirror shades. One of them has a blonde crew cut and a jagged scar crossing half his forehead and the other has a slicked back, black ponytail. She would call it a nub more than a tail really. These guys aren’t from around here, not this side of town. The two of them haven’t answered a single one of her questions since they grabbed her outside the run-down gas station on 1st and Pine. It was the only place on this side of town that had a cheap cup of coffee that didn’t taste like burned garbage. It was still garbage, but at least it wasn’t scorched. So she had been there bright and early to score her first fix for the day and get ready to hustle for more.

So there she was in her too-big pink hoodie and a pair of ratty ill-fitting jeans just crossing the parking lot in her own world when these two well-dressed goons grabbed her. In broad daylight she was being dragged into this vehicle despite her protests and no one even bats an eye. 3 people walked into the store as she was being manhandled and not a single one even stopped to give her a second glance.

Once the muscle had her safely tucked between them, she jokingly asked, “Don’t you fellas think I’m a bit underdressed for this party?”

Nothing.

“Am I in a Pretty Woman remake?”

Nothing.

“Isn’t Richard Gere a little old for a hooker?”

Nothing.

“Tough crowd in there tonight,” she had huffed then belying how nervous she was becoming.

The last 5 minutes have passed in silence while her heartrate steadily climbs and not from drugs for once. She has been considering feigning an OD or something but at this point, she might just have a heart attack all on her own. No pretending necessary.

She decides to try another tactic and lets her hand slide higher up the thigh of the “gentleman” to her right, Ponytail, and says in her most sultry tone, “what’s a girl gotta do to get some answers around here?” She feels him tense under her touch, but he firmly takes her hand and places it back in her own lap. When she moves to touch him again, he reaches out with lightening speed, grabs her wrist, and bends it back until she’s screaming in pain. Ponytail never utters a word, not so much as a grunt, and Blondie may as well have been a statue.

She sits in silence then nursing her throbbing wrist, breathing heavily, and unable to think clearly enough to formulate any real plan to get out of this fucking mess. Every second ticking by feels like a lifetime, and she wonders if this morning will be her last.

Did she miss her last sunrise? Had she wasted her last night fucking johns for $45 a pop, pun intended, to re-up her heroin stash? Had she not even gotten her last cup of morning coffee? Her last real orgasm? The tallying in her head nears obsession. She had never gotten even her GED, never went to college, never been much of anything but a stripper (and a damn good one) until that sunken-in, strung-out look got her fired. She’d never had never even had a dog. Her last boyfriend beat the shit out of her for 2 years straight which, she is pretty damn sure, isn’t love. Had she ever been in love? Been loved?

When was the last time she felt the grass between her toes? Gone swimming? Had a fresh glass of lemonade? A homecooked meal? Fuck’s sake, when was the last time she even had a Pop Tart? A Twizzler?

She tries to remember the last time she laughed, a real laugh not that fake shit she does when one of her clients tells one of their stupid jokes, and she can’t. That fact sinks in—that she can’t even remember the last time she didn’t have to force a laugh, when something was so spectacularly hilarious that she lost her breath, tears streaming from her face. The thought sucker punches her in the solar plexis catching her breath and hurting so much more than the wrist she still cradled against her chest.

She hasn’t really been alive in a long time.

The SUV begins to slow. She peers nervously through tear-blurred eyes out the windows as the driver turns left into driveway guarded by a wrought iron gate. He pauses, shows his face to a camera, and waits for the gates to open.

A strange sensation, part light and part tingle, begins to well inside her, and she realizes for the first time in a long while, she has hope that she sees tomorrow.

_____________________________________________________________

Another Sunday Confessions prompt that made me terrified I would never be able to come up with something then boom the words fall into place. I would have had this posted by now but damn it I am ready for fall and I am forcing it into my life in the kitchen today making gingerbread cookies. Hope you enjoyed the tale and stop by for dessert and coffee :)

Happily Ever After Revamped

Girls are raised from the beginning, from their earliest days, to wait and hope for their Prince Charming. Most of Disney’s catalogue, in fact, features a fair maiden who is saved from her miserable life, whatever that constitutes, by an amazing man who does whatever it takes to have her, marry her, and live happily ever after with her. We’re taught to hope that happily ever after happens to us like that’s the only fulfilling thing we will ever experience. Being married to a dream man with adorable faults whose sole purpose in life is to bind us in matrimony for the rest of our lives is EVERYTHING.

Cinderella doesn’t fantasize about nailing her dream job and getting out of servitude to her evil step-family. She doesn’t dream about starting her own DIY blog or using her new mouse friends to start her own clothing line. She dreams of attending the ball, of climbing the social ladder, and marrying her prince. Instead of using her magical animal friends to help her escape, they make her a dress to impress the man of her dreams.

Ariel dreams of walking on land, of being with people (that should make you question her sanity right there). Her desire is to go where the people are…especially when she meets Eric. And from then on every. single. hope. has to do with being with that man. Her whole life’s goal is that man even if she has to give up her very identity, her metaphorical soul to do so.

Snow White’s entire existence is dependent upon being kissed by a man who falls for her upon sight. She doesn’t wake up to hopes and dreams of going back to school, getting a degree, or becoming a stay at home mom and independent author. She counts on happily ever after with a man who only knows her as a silent, willing body…in a coma and totally compliant.

              Why do we do this to ourselves?

Why do we base all our hopes and dreams and happiness in loving another human being?

Fuck that.

The societal norm of finding our “other halves,” of hoping to connect to someone who in some way “completes” us seems a bit odd. Logically, wouldn’t it seem like a better plan to find happiness in ourselves, to develop our own hopes, dreams, and goals so that we can share those things with someone else rather than depending on another person to do it for us? Perhaps that’s part of the problem and why we see divorce rates continue to climb in this country. Instead of focusing on ourselves and knowing ourselves, we’re pressured, consciously or not, to hope that someone will come along and rescue us from our own lives, who will sweep us away on a white horse to happily ever after—a state of being that is conveniently never fully described in any fairly tale.

Being in love, whatever that means, is a great feeling. There’s no denying it. But, the same centers in the brain are activated by love as by certain drugs, and when a relationship is over, addiction centers see an increase in activity. We get a high from love that clouds our judgment yet makes us euphoric and when it leaves, we’re left empty, afraid, and withdrawing. It takes a sound person to make it through that unscathed…not the kind of person who grew up thinking that fairy tales are something to hope for. I learned a long time ago that determining my worth is not dependent on being with someone no matter how much I dig intimacy. I figured out I can be happy right by myself. I totally dig me and all I’m about. I don’t have to hope for a Prince Charming to get by because I’m my own savior, my own hope for happily ever after. Love is easier that way because it’s not what I base my entire existence upon…I don’t need a Prince to wake me up from my coma and throw me onto his horse to ride off into the sunset together. I’m already awake, and any Prince that walks into my life is going to have to get off his fucking horse and get to work in my garden. Them’s the breaks.

Perhaps fairly tales need to be revamped a bit so we can teach our girls that love isn’t the be-all, end-all to a happy story. I would hope that all of us would want more for them. I know I want more for my nieces.

And, as always, this has been a part of Sunday Confessions with More than Cheese and Beer. The prompt is Hope. Check out her blog to read the other link ups and her Facebook page for anonymous confessions.