My best friend visited today. We went grocery shopping together and did some catching up.

 

But what we did mostly was commiserate, which was immensely cathartic (for me, at least).

 

I cried at least six times.  Which is sooooo unlike me.  I’m usually the last to cry, not the first.

 

But I feel safe, heard, and understood by her, and my bottled up emotions needed to go somewhere, so I could breathe again.

 

So I admitted to her that I’m absolutely broken. My spirit isn’t just in the toilet, it’s clear down in the sewer, putrefying.

 

I assured her that although I’m not suicidal, I wish I didn’t have to wake up tomorrow morning, and that if I were diagnosed with a terminal illness, I would feel nothing but relief and joy.  “Oh, good!  I’m almost outta here!”

 

These are NOT the sentiments of a person  in robust mental health, to say the least

 

The only thing that gives me a sense of hope and purpose right now is making arrangements to get out of this country sometime in the next year. I will only feel free of this desperate malaise when  I am out of here.  This nation is on the verge of becoming the armpit of creation. I have worked my butt off for decades in attempts to avoid arriving at this destination, but here we are.

 

I told her I can’t do Thanksgiving this year at her place.  She guessed why  correctly. I simply can’t feel thankful sitting at the same table with anyone who has ever voted for Trump.

 

I haven’t taken Thanksgiving with my biological family since they voted for Trump in 2015, and I have no intention of doing so now with a non-family member. Someone my best friend abides/tolerates is an intolerant, male supremacist Trumper.  (She didn’t know this about him when they connected. He was a Bernie guy back then.) I have always gone to her Thanksgiving gatherings — Christmases, too — while Biden was POTUS — but not this year.

 

This year I’m too pissed off to behave like there is nothing wrong.  Too pissed off to have to voluntarily interact with a white male supremacist.  Too pissed off to share a meal with someone who demonizes and discounts the lived reality of trans people like me.

 

My tolerance ends where another’s intolerance is their modus operandi

 

I’m tired of being the peacemaker, the wave-smoother, the “easy-to-be-around” social acquaintance.  I’m tired of behaving like a doormat: “Feel free to walk all over me and my rights with your vote: I will keep right on smiling and treating you with decency and respect.”  Seriously, fuck that. 

 

I’m too tired to pretend anymore. I want to spend the holidays ONLY with individuals I love who have my back.

 

No one else.