I can’t do it today.

I have several articles I’m working on right now. I was going to post a happy, lighthearted romp to help people get through what’s happening right now.

I can’t do it.  I can’t write it, I can’t try to pass it off as genuine right now.

Here’s the thing, I’m pissed off, rage-filled, and every abuse button is being bombarded like a meteor shower on my chest.  Every woman I know is having similar reactions, and the men in my life are standing beside us, there to catch us if we need to break, and there to be a show of force, of unity, as we stand tall.

But that doesn’t alter the fact that I feel like I’m going to shatter.  It seems like a contradiction, I’m strong and about to break, but it’s not.  I am strong because I’m about to break, but I stand anyway.  Strength is doing what we think we can’t, bravery is doing what we are afraid of, and integrity is doing what is right because it is right, regardless of the cost.

As I write this, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is testifying about her abuse at the hands of a candidate for the highest court in the country.  She has received death threats, her family has received death threats, she has had to uproot her life to move away from men so terrified of women that they must resort to terrorism to feel better.

This is not about politics, this is about human rights.  Human dignity.  It’s about what we as women go through all of our lives.  It’s about the smirks and knowing winks between men with power over us, it’s about the President of the United States demeaning women everywhere this time, by immediately taking the side of the accused, and saying in his best five-year-old schoolyard vocabulary that this is a “…big fat con job.”

Are you angry?  Are you feeling helpless, or empowered, or scared, or on fire?  Maybe all of those things?

The main point of this blog is mental health and safety for people suffering.  I am here for you, and I will be a voice of comfort when I can.  But right now, I can’t.

I am enraged with a white-hot flame.  I am alternately strong and crying, motivated and hiding.

But I want to write at this moment because it’s real and raw and unedited.  This is me, in a bad place, trying to keep my shit together.

I  hope that by the time you read this, Kavanaugh is pounding sand somewhere.  But I am not optimistic.  I am not optimistic about anything.

I stand with you, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.  I wish I had a quarter of your strength and integrity.

This is my cat Crazy Legs with his doggy sculpture friend.  It makes me smile.  Maybe you will like it too.