I write to you today double Xanaxed. It’s for the best. Last night I was also double Xanaxed, which meant that I’d wake up in intervals, check the news, accept the grimmest of news with the ability to turn over and go back to sleep.

I was able to zombie my way through the morning, doing Juno’s (admittedly uneven) “mouse ears” in her hair, and feeding both children and packing their lunches. We xanax zombied through Target, because our kids really only have Crocs, and it finally snowed last night.

And then I saw a Bernese Mountain Dog and a Golden Retriever playing in the snow, and it became clear last night’s double Xanax had worn off, as I sobbed audibly about the ignorant happiness these pups were able to enjoy. I sobbed as I got back home, and I did a stint laying prostrate across four or five stairs, weeping into the disgusting carpet we know needs replacing.

Jeremy, knowingly, let me weep there a moment, where he made me a cozy bed to weep upon instead.

Where I precisely took another double Xanax, so I can’t be accused of writing this place from a histrionics. Instead I write to you from a place of grim, reasonable, zombie mode. It will not be my permanent state, Xanax scares me. It is a temporary comping mechanism while I gather the mental wherewithal to decide where we go… from here…

Parenting just got a little bit harder today.

I grew up in a pretty purple area, but still remember learning our simple lessons about the Civil Rights Movement and the dangers of deforestation. Love, acceptance, breaking down barrier, overcoming ignorance, heck! I remember a fourth-grade lesson from my white-ass teacher about the dangers of racial profiling! We seemed collectively invested in a greater, more egalitarian, good — A Harry Potter-level simplicity about the love and sacrifice of a mother being *enough* to conquer evil.

I remember Sunday School lessons about Christian charity, about loving thy neighbor, even if they “don’t look or walk like most people do.” I took these at face values. I imbibed this into my identity. This is still there within me. In New York, I got to practice loving the stinky man sleeping across 8 seats on a crowded subway, instead of just loving the people that gave me promotions and played by my rules. I got to practice loving the panhandlers, and the drag queens, and the crusty uber drives. Practice turned to real love, not abstract love you can only conceptualize when you live in a homogeneous suburb. Without practice, it was too easy to secretly believe Christian love only extended to the people around you playing by “the rules.”

It was a growing, expanding, nuanced sort of the love that has come to comprise my moral and ethical framework: formulated by simple story books, biblical passages, and the school of hard knocks.

But now, today, after a sea of defeat– how do I take my delicate six-year-old in this climate and explain to him, pathetically, that love, kindness, and human decency are still more important than blind power and “strong” leadership. How do I help my six-year-old believe in the power of love, charity, and empathy when those concepts have just lost so dramatically on a national stage? Is it time to teach him chess along-side empathy?

Schools with policed versions of American history, Sunday School lessons with a wildly different interpretation of Christian love? Do we all still believe in term limits? Do we all still believe in VOTING or do we just believe in WINNING? What does Democracy look like? To me, it kind of looks like JK Rowling — looks nice, sounds nice, isn’t nice.

I know I am not the only parent in America wondering against the grain if I can love hard enough, demonstrate and cultivate enough empathy to carry my son and daughter through the Youtube Age, the Information Age. Can I love them hard enough that they don’t stumble across Andrew Tate? Can I demonstrate enough goodness that they’re convinced to fight the good fight against an autocratic regime?

It’s not that liberals are without thorny histories or seedy underbellies, I had an uncomfortable late twenties pulling up all the floorboards of my identity both religious and political.

But with children, you reach for a gentle concoction of truth and high-level overview, with trickle of nuance that will give them foothold in their twenties.

And I thought this race between Kamala Harris- a reasonable prosecutor, strong debater, with intelligence and vision, and her running mate Tim Walz—a good man, father, and teacher, and… Trump — the bombastic, criminally convicted felon and rapist —well I thought it was a pretty clear lesson here for the youngins. Even if I’m already a bit jaded, I thought we could use this to remind them about the power of good. I planned to tackle the nuance in Gaza, the concept of greater good vs. perfect good. I had the curriculum in hand.

I don’t want my kids to see the wave of red around them, and feel like we’re on a floating (sinking) island of blue, all by ourselves.

Another hard thing about today is that I just physically can’t unsee Trump for what he is. A Narcissist, bombastic, bully. A convicted criminal. I can’t see his virtue. I hate what that makes me think and wonder about Trump-supporters. What AM I MISSING? Women? Tell me what it is about Trump that you want your children to emulate? I wanted Gus’s Dad front and center. I wanted Juno to see a joyful woman with a sharp tongue in charge. Can I confess? I really wanted that.

Barring the usual talking points “America is racist, America is misogynistic,” I wish I could access the part of the average voter that sees good in Donald Trump. As an unfortunately diagnosed empath, I hate feeling like I don’t understand my people.

That lack of understanding makes me feel.. ostracized. Lonely. And as much as I’ve been chided for dramatics, it makes me feel scared. What wave is coming, and when I inevitably don’t ride it, will I be lost at sea without a life raft?

These are simplistic morning-after thoughts.

Losing is lonely, but I’d lose again and again before letting go of these hard-fought feelings.

I just hate the feeling that my children are losing too.

Share if this resonates with you.