I know that I abandoned you for a time.

I’m not sure why. I could use the usual excuses. I was busy with work. I was busy with family. I was busy with household chores. Someone once told me those were good excuses, but excuses nevertheless.

It’s funny to look back now and realize that one of my most productive periods with you was during the busiest time of my life. How did I find the time? If you want something done, they say, ask a busy person.

Now, it seems I have time to spare, time that drags on, hours and days and weeks, counting the time until I can be busy and fill my calendar again. So I’ve returned to you. Because you’ve always been there in good times and bad, in difficult moments, and in cherished ones, to bring me solace, to help me understand, to express what I cannot otherwise articulate.

When I was a child, I found my voice through you. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that I needed you as much as I needed food and water. Uprooted and moved from Birmingham to Dallas to Kansas City to Atlanta to San Rafael, back to Birmingham, to La Jolla to Houston, to Palos Verdes and back to San Diego (and I have lost track even now of some of the stops), I found solace in my Dear Diary, my steadfast companion. I wanted normalcy and stability and you heard me, loud and clear, in words I screamed out to the pages within.

While separated by some of these moves, my best friend and I kept our friendship intact by creating magazines for each other. I looked forward to receiving hers in the mail, and even more so, to writing and creating one for her. They extended a necessary lifeline in a chaotic storm.

Through junior high heartbreaks and mean girls and friendships and crushes, I confided in you.  Teachers along the way encouraged and praised, so I began to write stories, but just for me. In high school, I joined the newspaper and for the first time tested the experience of writing for my peers’ eyes to read. It was the most frightening chasm to cross – allowing others to view my words, letting them stand bare on a page for all to judge and critique, but, perhaps, also to enjoy and empathize. Either way, I couldn’t quit you. To write was as natural as breathing by then.

Though there were essays upon essays about English literature in college, I still found time for you, logging pages about the highs and lows, the adventures, the sadness, the heady moments of joy. I still wrote stories, though for no one’s eyes but my own.

Then, a long period of time went by without you. I don’t know how it happened. I married. I had children. I had a thriving business. I was happy. You seemed unnecessary or at least, for a time, unimportant. Days were filled with children’s laughter and crying, work deadlines, and so many activities, and most nights consisted of falling into bed, exhausted, barely able to read a few pages in a book, much less put my own words onto a page.

And then I suddenly needed you – desperately – but I didn’t know it.

Traveling often for work, I suddenly became terrified of flying. Anxiety rocked me weeks before a trip. Terror filled me the night before, so I could not sleep. I would sit on a flight, head leaning against the window on take-off, hiding my face so no one could see my discomfort and tears. Even while on land or in a car, the sight of a plane overhead could elicit panic. It was exhausting and painful both physically and mentally and I didn’t know what to do. The lack of control over my phobia – especially for an admitted control freak – was overwhelming at times.

A family member convinced me to see a hypnotherapist. I was skeptical, of course. But I went. It was entirely different from what I’d expected. The first half hour was an ordinary therapy discussion, followed by a half hour of actual hypnosis. During the first half hour, the therapist asked about my life, my job, and more importantly this:

What have you not done in your life that you’ve always wanted to do?

I had to think long and hard. I acknowledged that I’d always thought I’d be a writer. And that I’d write novels. And clearly, I hadn’t done that.

Why haven’t you done that? 

I don’t know.

Are you writing now? 

No, not really. (Truth was, not at all, except for work)

And why not? 

Because, I explained, I have two young kids, and I’m juggling my family with my business, and my kids’ activities, and I write for work and that takes so much out of me, and oh, I teach aerobics three times a week on top of that, and I just can’t fit anything else into my schedule.

Those are all good excuses. But excuses nevertheless.

After he allowed me to ponder this, he told me that when he put me under hypnosis, he wanted to give me a suggestion to begin writing again. To come back to you. I didn’t understand, but I said that was fine. I didn’t believe him. Even after he successfully hypnotized me, even after I came out of his office feeling as though I’d had the best sleep of my life, I didn’t understand how this could have anything to do with overcoming my fear of flying.

I never went back to hypnotherapy, but over the next three months, something startling happened. I returned to you. I signed up for creative writing extension classes at my alma mater. I wrote short stories – one of which was published. I wrote a novel (still unpublished, but completed, nevertheless). I journaled. I blogged. And something even more amazing happened over the next year – my fear of flying dissipated.

It may be dramatic to say that, at times, you saved my life, but you’ve certainly helped in times of crisis, in times of despair and confusion. And so, I have returned to you.

The words may not be perfect. They may be awkwardly strung together and not form the most cohesive and beautiful sentences. But they are here on the page. Those writing muscles are rusty and soft and altogether underutilized, but they are still here.

Thank you for coming back to me now, in this scary and anxious time, when it’s so hard to make sense of what’s happening in this world. Thank you for, once again, being my companion in fear, anger, sadness, joy, and belief. It’s true, I abandoned you. Yet you have never once abandoned me.

 

In 2016, right after the presidential election, I wrote a blog called “”. I was dumbfounded, shocked, and utterly despondent that our country could elect such a terrible human being to the highest office of our land. I heard people who either voted for Trump, didn’t vote at all, or who casted a protest vote for a third party nominee they knew couldn’t win, saying “just give him a chance” and “he can’t be that bad” and “I just couldn’t bring myself to vote for Hillary”. I wanted to try. I wanted to believe he couldn’t be that bad. Really, I did.

Three years later, it’s crystal clear that they were all wrong. Trump is ten times worse than I could have ever imagined. And our country – and real people the world over – are suffering as a result. We’ve rarely had a single hour – much less a single day – without an assault of “what did he do?” or “what did he tweet?” or “oh no, how could he say that?”. It has been a constant barrage of awful – and I’m utterly exhausted from it. And I know I’m not alone.

Now, on the brink of another election that may not even be valid because of the Republican leadership’s refusal to put in place any safeguards against interference (which we know for a fact happened last time), an election that is likely to be full of anger and protests because our country is more divided than ever, I want to ask those same people who either voted for him – or couldn’t bring themselves to vote for – GASP – a Democrat, exactly how bad does it have to get before you stand up for your country, our democracy and most of all, DECENCY?

One argument I hear is “yeah, he’s an idiot, but I like his policies”. Never mind that you’re on board with allowing a terrible and wholly unqualified human being to hold the highest office in our land – one who cheats, lies, lines his own pockets with taxpayer money, refuses to show his tax returns, and demonstrates racism, misogyny and constant signs of utter dim-wittedness on a myriad of issues – I can’t get past that, of course – but let’s talk about those policies you like so much (and do check my hyperlinks for factual back-up of all of these points, in case you’re inclined to do as Trump does and question the legitimacy of a free press in a Democratic society).

Do you like his idea that he can order American businesses to do what he says? You used to call that “socialism” (though most of you don’t even know what socialism actually means nor have you ever lived in a country that practices it) and you railed against it constantly when Obama was president. But I guess you’ve decided you like it now?

Are you a fan of the tariffs and trade wars he has initiated that are causing rising prices and damaging our economy? Funny, I thought you conservatives would never want to do anything to harm farmers, businesses, the American consumer and the precious economy, but I guess you’ve changed your mind.

Perhaps you fiscal conservatives are fond of the record deficit that this White House occupant has driven up during his past three years in office? You complained continually that we had no money to pay for education, infrastructure, healthcare and other priorities that might help America lead in the 21^stcentury because you said they would cost too much. But the tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% were cool and so is funding all those Mar-a-Lago and Trump resort trips and don’t forget that border wall that Mexico was going to pay for! $1.067 trillion in debt – the highest the debt has been since 2012, in the aftermath of the financial crisis? I guess you must have changed your mind on those fiscal policies you claimed to favor.

I’m guessing you must be a big fan of the idea to hold secret meetings with the Taliban – a terrorist organization that harbored and helped the people responsible for 9/11 – on U.S. soil?And the timing – just before 9/11- was impeccable, right? Remember when some of you called Obama a Muslim and thought he was in bed with the radical extremists? Even finally doing what the Bush administration couldn’t and killing Bin Laden wasn’t enough to convince you that Obama had America’s best interests at heart, but I guess Trump convinced you that he did when he ignored the pleading of his third and now departed National Security Adviser, his Vice President and I’m guessing nearly everyone else who tries their best to advise the unadvisable, and invited the Taliban to a little get-together on American soil…then tweeted out his cancellation of the meeting. Maybe you ought to start reading something into the fact that this administration has had a record number of job-holders vacate their positions just three years in? Maybe you should also take a look at how many of these folks related to the Trump campaign and administration have been indicted – by Robert Mueller…a Republican. Perhaps you should also remember that the only reason Trump wasn’t? Because Mueller and his team came to the conclusion that a sitting president cannot be indicted. They never said he wasn’t guilty.

I guess like most conservatives (and – you’d be surprised – a lot of liberals), you think that we need to reform immigration policy. But I guess if you like Trump’s policies, you’re in favor of separating young children from their parents, putting them in terrible conditions that will undoubtedly affect them not just physically, but mentally, for years to come – something other countries have clearly called out as a human rights violation – and doing so indefinitely. Yeah, big fan of cruel and unusual punishment to helpless children, myself…

Perhaps you like the shifting of $3.6 billion in military construction initiatives towards building that border wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for? Oh, I know, you’d be out in the fields picking strawberries, doing your own damn gardening and sending your housekeeper on her way if it wasn’t for all those Mexicans taking those jobs you so want for yourself. But do you really believe building a wall that requires taking away land from private citizens and will only be possible if we take funding from the military that conservatives profess to love so very much is a good policy? I guess you aren’t convinced that this is a supremely bad idea – not even after the U.S. Air Force report that shows that diverting funding from the 51 targeted projects will actually pose national security risks? I guess not.

Maybe your favorite policy is the introduction of that rule that says those serving in our military – serving our country and living on military bases abroad –  now cannot guarantee U.S. citizenship for any children born to them abroad? Because you’re a patriot and you stand behind our military, don’t you? So you’re certainly on board with taking away their rights as citizens of the U.S. when they’re – you know – serving the U.S. interests abroad.

Maybe you’re just a big NRA fan and not part of the 90% of Americans who are tired of watching mass shooting after mass shooting take innocent lives and want better background checks and gun control. I can certainly understand that you like the Trump policy of doing whatever the NRA tells him to do. And you probably forgot that even under your conservative hero, Ronald Reagan, we enacted gun legislation that worked.

Speaking of Reagan, who must be rolling in his grave at this point, you must have forgotten that he was actually quite an environmentalist because it seems you’re in favor of all those Trump roll-backs of anything Obama’s EPA did to ensure our water and air stays clean, that polluters are punished, and that we try to move into the 21^stcentury by using things like energy-efficient lightbulbs. Well, but he has such a good argument, that you’re surely in favor of, right? The lightbulbs “make him” orange, after all, and well, if Obama did it, it must be bad. I guess you think policies should be based on good reasons like this and we should enact them via tweets.

Do tell which of these policies exactly allow you to continue to put blinders on when faced with the despicable behavior of a man that – if you’re honest – you would NEVER associate with in your everyday life. Had your sister met this guy in high school, you would have, as Joe Biden says, taken him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him. If your brother was friends with this guy, you would have gone right to your parents to let them know that you were worried about the crowd your sibling was hanging around. If your parents said they were thinking about going into business with this guy – a guy that has bankrupted nearly all of his endeavors – you’d tell them they were crazy and to stay away from the con man. The guy has been married three times, dumping his previous wives for the one that came after, he has paid off porn stars, and there is video evidence of him saying horrifyingly sexist and misogynistic things. He has called Nazis “fine people” while refusing to call out white supremacy. He has told more than 12,000 lies or misleading claims since taking office. But I get it. Those policies you love are worth having this guy lead and represent our country and be a role model to young children across the country. After all, you’re for family values and boy does Trump model them like no other, right? The saddest thing – I’m how many pages in? And I have barely scratched the surface of the awful things Trump has done in just three years.

Let’s be honest: both the man and the policies stink and you’re afraid to put aside your partisan views and vote for your country, its democracy and ideals first. Stop telling us the lies about loving his policies. You didn’t love them before. You don’t love them now. You only love the idea of blind loyalty to a party and hatred for the one that opposes it.

I’m a life-long Democrat and liberal (though I have voted for a Republican before because, when faced with a bad person, I vote for the good one). I didn’t vote for Nixon, Bush the first, Reagan, or Bush the second. But I lived through them. And I’m no worse off today because of any of them. And while I vehemently disagreed with many of their policies, I never for a second doubted that they loved their country and had its best interests at heart. You know that’s the same for you with Carter, Clinton and Obama whether you voted for them or not, whether you liked or hated them, whether you want to admit it or stubbornly refuse to do so.

I don’t know how much worse it has to get before good people (or what I thought were good people) decide that a very bad man should not be allowed to sit in the highest office of our land and represent our country on the world stage. I don’t know how much worse it has to get before these good people recognize that no policy is worth allowing a liar and a cheat who demeans people constantly, to get richer and more powerful at our expense. I don’t know how much worse it has to get before these same people admit that they were wrong, that they’re just clinging to a party-first mindset and ignoring the fact that none of these policies are actually things they want or agree with. And I don’t know how long before they will see that by accepting this man, these policies, they are allowing our country to lose its way, allowing our democracy to be threatened, and our place in the world to be diminished, and that these things pose real danger for real people everywhere. I don’t know how long before good people realize that history will look back on them some day with shock and horror that they allowed a criminal to sit in the White House and spread corruption across our Nation.

Good people make mistakes. But if they are truly good people, they are big enough to admit them and do all they can to correct them. If you’re one of these people, and faced with all that we’ve seen in the past three years, still can’t bring yourself to vote for anyone who runs against this corruption and criminality, then I have to say, I just don’t know how long I can call you “good people” anymore.