Last night at around midnight, after watching Parts 1 and 2 of the Lonesome Dove series (long overdue, and probably coincidentally), my brain flipped a switch.
I’m decidedly HAPPY again! It feels like a freaking miracle.
Here’s what happened. I turned off the lights at about midnight with the thought it was time to go to sleep.
But my brain remained wide awake. I mulled over a few niggling concerns, but then I noticed that my baseline energy level/my vibrational level/my chief overriding emotion was … joy!
I don’t think I’ve felt true joy in over five years.
Most recently, I’ve felt relief, gratitude, brief instances of wellbeing and contentment, but I’ve been saddled with PTSD from the former administration, where I felt we (the nation and the world) were always in some state of urgent “Damage Control.”
As soon as the administration changed hands (following that unsettling insurrection on Capitol Hill by far right evangelical and white nationalist/supremacist ideologues), I felt relief (that no one had been assassinated on Inauguration Day) and a sense of “Oh boy, compassionate adults are back in the Oval Office!” but there was still that unsettling sense of waiting for yet another shoe to drop…
Well, the Biden-Harris administration has been in office almost two months, and how things have changed … for the better and to the good of all Americans. We’re getting vaccinated at unprecedented levels; the government is coming to the aid of 85% of American citizens with the recent passage of the American Rescue Plan (a plan not a single GOP member voted for, despite the fact that it has bipartisan support in cities and towns across the nation).
I know that’s part of what has turned me from living in the doldrums to living with a sense of joy and anticipation instead of dread.
I don’t know what else to attribute this to. Nothing else in my world has changed, other than I have both vaccines on board and I’m also starting to venture out more (with friends who have also been inoculated). It feels like we’re getting our lives back and we’re on the cusp of encountering more delight and relief.
This goes beyond relief. It’s a sense of renewed possibilities. I can’t get this smile off my face.
Not that I want to.
But I realize that not everyone is where I am yet. I hope this encourages you. It WILL happen. If you’ve been traumatized by the last five years, don’t lose hope. Tomorrow promises to be a lot brighter than what we’ve just been through as a nation and a world.
With responsible adults at the helm, we’re turning this ship of state and sailing toward less turbulent times. The government has our backs. We are no longer adrift in a sea of sharks, treading water, hoping no one else bleeds.
Listen to the yay-sayers. They’re always going to have your back.
Love is back in action. That’s what gives me the greatest sense of joy.
Give your brain a fighting chance to recalibrate and re-set. Give it something positive and hopeful to anticipate.
Your brain won’t let you down. It knows you intimately and it knows what you need. Feed it love and possibility.
