About three years ago, after losing my brother to suicide, I found myself in my therapist's office asking "How do I make the hurting stop?" The therapist said to me, "Exactly what you're doing ... crying ... feeling the hurt, the anger ... not holding it in ... expressing your pain ... letting it all out. Let it out, Jenny. It's ok for you to let it out."
And that's what I did. What I've learned from that experience is that I don't need to glorify the fraudulence of the "choose happy" movement. Authentic happy, and peace, and beauty arrive usually through the hard work of going through the expression of the less bright and shiny ... of not holding it in.
I am joining thousands of women across this great nation on January 21st to participate in the Women's March. The main march is in Washington DC, the day after the inauguration, and there are countless sister marches all across the nation in major cities, including my own city of Santa Ana.
I am marching because I refuse to hold in the hurt of realizing that among other things, the fascist being sworn into office on January 20th:
- taunts other nations with nuclear capacity in ways that threaten our world's peace
- brags about sexually assaulting women
- views undocumented Mexican humans as criminals and rapists
- threatens women's right to reproductive health, and states that a woman who has an abortion needs to be punished
- aligns with Vladimir Putin, a war criminal who has murdered civilians and political opponents
- ridicules with vindictiveness and maliciousness, individuals and groups who either fall short of his definition of beauty or in some way challenge him
The hurt doesn't stop there. There are humans who will be marching for reasons that are not on my personal list but a list that is causing hurt and anger and deep disgust. On my Facebook wall when I posted an expression related to all of this, a person named Li Li Wee posted: "I live in Malaysia. Freedom of speech is restricted. It's difficult to just keep everything inside. You are ... courageous."
Undoubtedly, there will be hecklers during the march. Because there are so many heckling already online. And as the heckles come, I will keep my therapist's words close to my heart:
"Let it out, Jenny. It's ok for you to let it out."
Great post Jenny. Safe travels.
Posted by: stephanie | January 17, 2017 at 08:30 AM