Everything’s Going to Be Alright

Rebecca Leone

Goodness me, it’s a new day in America, isn’t it?

How’ve you been coping with either your immense joy or your severe depression, or are you enjoying that “I didn’t vote because I don’t care” ambivalence?

Are you dreading the upcoming winter holidays because you’ve got friends or family on the “other side” of these divisive political and social issues, and there’s sure to be heat?

I don’t have a family and I love spending the holidays alone so, for my weird self, everything is super clean and simple, but for normal people, it’s just a huge challenge to find a way through what, even in good times, is an emotionally charged, difficult to navigate holiday season.

How about this.

Let’s back off of broad assumptions for now and work on realizing that the good people you know who voted for the candidate you didn’t are more like you than not.  They’d help you if you needed it.   They look just like friends of yours, maybe they look just like you.  They want the same things you want.  They work hard.  They try their best.  They believe as much in their candidate as you do in yours.

 

To help you enjoy the holidays, practice saying:

“thanks for letting me know how you feel, isn’t the pie delicious?”

“only time will tell how this turns out and I know we’re all hoping for the best”

“I’m needed in the kitchen, will you please excuse me?”

 

To help you enjoy the holidays, avoid saying:

“He’s going to start a war and it’s going to be your fault”

“America is the laughing stock of the world, happy now?”

“Mike Pence for President”

 

For more help in preparing for holiday interaction with “them” read this and this and this, which contains the gem “If he continued, she would hold her hand up, making a peace sign and signaling for him to stop.”

 

This Thanksgiving as you gather with loved ones, some of whom will surely be on the other side, here’s hoping you have the grace and decorum to flash that peace sign, excuse yourself and get busy in the kitchen or better yet, out in the yard where you can more easily enjoy the crisp air and marvel at the enormous sky as the world continues, as the world does, to spin.

 

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all.

PS  I knew Trump would win.

UPDATE A day later:  PPS  A reader wrote that they thought my PS was snarky, and they were disappointed in me for that.

To which I responded:
First, I hope you’ll accept my sincere apology for having disappointed you; that’s obviously never my intent and in spite of purposely trying not to, having done it is especially, well, disappointing!  Please forgive me.
I thought “snark/snarky” meant a kind of passive-aggressive, snide insult, so I’m not sure how my PS rises to the definition Urban Dictionary and I have been assuming.
____
Urban Dictionary:  noun
Combination of “snide” and “remark”. Sarcastic comment(s).
Also snarky (adj.) and snarkily (adv.)
His commentary was rife with snark.
“Your boundless ineptitude is astounding,” she snarkily declared.
_______
About how I knew Trump would win, I’m based in Florida which is a crazy kind of state for a lot of reasons but is crazy important in politics.  In the final week of the campaigns, both candidates and surrogates were not only in Florida every day, but specifically along a corridor that runs right through my hometown – without that corridor, no White House.  Weird, to think that could be true, but it is.  Because of my proximity to that craziness, plus my awareness of early and pervasive Trump yard signs at homes all over town including our biggest waterfront mansions and, as more expected, all over my trailer park which, oddly, is mostly owned by rich Canadians.  From home, I could see wide support across socio-economic strata.  I also traveled a bunch during the summer and fall and in airports across America, I saw the same thing only demonstrated through Trump hats, t-shirts, and bumper stickers stuck onto carry on luggage.  Absolutely nothing to that extent was being shown in support of Clinton.  I kept reading the polls showing Clinton with a narrow lead and I’d think, that won’t hold, and, of course, it didn’t.  That’s how I knew he’d win.  There was nothing insulting or snide intended in my PS.  When I have time, I’ll get back into the post and expand on it so that I don’t run the risk of disappointing anybody else by causing them to think I was being snide.
And just so you know, whenever I have something to say that’s considered to be counter, or confrontational, or oppositional, I’m direct, urgent and crystal clear.  If you’ve been reading me for a while, you’ll already know that.  If I’d meant to say anything substantive, candidate wise, I would have come at it straight on.
I’ll do a better job for you having reached out.  Thank you for that.
Happy Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for you!

__________________

If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of when I do engage for counter/correction/calling bullshit, you know the difference between what I meant by my PS and how I present when I have something counter to express.  The opposite of passive aggressive/snark – I have a long consistent history of pragmatically addressing controversial subjects, keeping personalities completely out of it and strictly adhering to the facts as established scientifically by experts outside the unregulated, unsafe Pilates industry.  I’m known for being direct, clear and absent personalization.

My PS illustrates the limitations of writing short.

So everybody, are we clear on this?  If not, please give me another shot at cleaning it up.

Everything’s Going to Be Alright