Impossible Choices

I am blessed to have a number of remarkable male friends in my life, and I trust each of them completely. My father and brother, among them. But the places where I have always felt safe and held with great care, have been in circles of women.

In the age of Trump, I am finding it horrifyingly difficult to settle for a candidate who will hopefully knock him off of his golden toilet (a great metaphor for how he treats our land and humans, alike – stealing the gold and shitting on the rest). My entire life has been spent settling for men unworthy of my love, and I have every intention of being done with this lesson the Universe has been presenting with consistency for three decades. This is the year that old patterns die.

Every man in my life who has entered in a romantic nature, has proven to be a disappointment, in one form or another – pretenders, cheaters, liars. I’ve written about them before, so I won’t bore you with outdated stories of woe. Enter the age of Trump… and I am triggered by his lies and bullying on a daily basis. His emotional instability, inability to speak the truth and his constant attacks on all that is good in this world, including the planet herself, make me feel like my own personal darkness has been made manifest in a single being, and is doing its best to swallow the light. As if to say, here you go! Have your fill of men who lie and be done with it! Be determined to set a healthy boundary, refuse to settle for less than you deserve, it is past time to move forward. We will make it impossible to tolerate this behavior any longer by saturating the world with it.

I am finally well enough – in recovery from unworthiness – to declare that I deserve better. WE DESERVE BETTER!

At the depths of my soul, I believe that it will take the strength of women’s hearts to right this world. I can no longer put stock in white men to get it done. They have failed us for centuries. They failed us the first time they heard a religious leader spew the words that women are the root of all evil, and didn’t stand beside us to say, “fuck that shit!” Instead, they stood by and watched us burn.

You’ve probably guessed that I voted for Hillary Clinton for president, and you are correct. I voted for her the first time, because I felt she had a plethora of experience that made her the best candidate for the role. She was well-educated in the law of our country, she had met more world leaders at the side of President Clinton, than any other President in history, and she fought hard for our country to provide healthcare for all, though the battle was lost because the effort was led by a woman.

When Barack Obama received the nomination, I could easily get behind him, because he was brilliant, a constitutional scholar, and my soul connected with his authentic goodness. But also…he,too, has been lied to his whole life. People lied to him about disrespecting him, not for the color of his skin, but some other made up bullshit. When he asked Hillary to be his Secretary of State, I applauded his choice, for all of the reasons above.

I voted for Hillary when she ran again, not because she was a woman, but because I felt she was the best candidate with the most experience in international affairs, as well as domestic care and concerns. I sobbed to see a racist, fascist, rapist being handed that position, because so many Americans could not stand to see a woman in the White House. Women are too emotional to lead, they said. Hillary was too polarizing, they said. But none seem to offer comment on the insanity of emotional rants and tweets from the current occupant, or how hate crimes have risen since day-one of his reign. Our country is surely suffering a greater division than we’ve experienced in my lifetime. Polarizing? Not her fault. This one’s on the white man in the White House.

I was thrilled to see so many people stand up to run for President in this election. The diversity and wisdom of each was inspiring and comforting. I felt that we would surely have the opportunity to elect someone who could make us proud. I was immediately drawn to Elizabeth Warren. At first, it was an intuitive feeling, much the way I am drawn to people whose energy resonates with my own. That feeling is what built my Tribe 26 years ago. That energy sustains me and delivers light in times of darkness.

Elizabeth Warren feels safe to me. She has the life experience that informs me she knows my suffering, and during her time as Senator, dealing with the likes of Mitch McConnell, she has proven herself to be a warrior. She does not tolerate a bully, and won’t allow those still finding their feet after trauma, to be beaten into the ground. She has plans that can improve our current situation, and is not too egotistic to allow input to improve them. She is the wise counsel leader in a sacred circle, who offers heart and time for all to be heard and held. She resonates with my own traumatized soul. And when I plugged my own beliefs into the candidate identifier program, she rose to the top each time.

So, as we near the end of the primary season, and we see that all women and people of color have been conveniently removed from our list of choices, I am finding it difficult to settle. My beloved country having to settle for a sociopathic toddler in the last Presidential election felt like the last straw. And yet… it seems certain that I must, as my personal history dictates, betray myself for the good of all. But… but… I DESERVE BETTER, UNIVERSE!

Yeah… I know that I’m not alone, as many of us have lost the opportunity to vote for someone we can easily believe in. I will vote for whichever white man my party presents to be deemed capable of defeating the tyrant, but I refuse to stop supporting the women I wish to have in my circle. I will take a moment to grieve and wail, as the banshee announces another death in the lifelong dream of women being considered truly equal. Then, I will gather hope into a resonant belief that we shall overcome, and that circles of authentic women and men will gather and forge a new way forward.

If Trump was the pendulum swing that resulted from a brilliant, black president who delivered respectability to our country in the eyes of the world, I had hoped that the misogyny and tyrannical terror of Trump would swing us toward our first female president as a salve for the emotional and psychic wounds we’ve endured.

Perhaps the Universe has something in store that is better than we can currently imagine. Or perhaps it will call forth that mighty meteor that will wipe humans off the earth, so that regeneration of the scarred sacred earth may finally begin from the destruction we’ve fraught. Choices. Possible?

However this particular chapter ends, may we successfully elect a leader who will put the needs of all life on planet Earth before the greed of wealthy men. May we elect a leader of strength and integrity who can restore all that has been lost, and deliver something better than we ever dreamed possible. Make it so, dear Universe.