You Got Me So Confused, It's a Shame

I admit, shamefully, that I did not want to spend an additional 2 or 3 hours of my day investigating and reading articles, watching video footage of the Breonna Taylor trial today and last night.  It's my day off and I value that time, each hour like precious gems. I try to fill them with creative projects, communication with family and friends, making meals for my mate, watching good movies, writing, listening to music.  Basic simple joys.    All the things that I resent not being able to do while I'm working. Putting on my own oxygen mask before I attempt to save others.  But how do you accomplish that logic and also keep up on the multitude of important, complex problems facing the world right now, and at the rate it's all pouring in.  How do we accomplish that balance of duty with our personal pursuit of happiness in this new world? 

I knew what I thought was enough about Taylor's case weeks ago to see it was an injustice, to feel for her family, to mourn the death of an innocent woman who probably made people happy and clearly was on a path to a better life after falling in love with the wrong someone.  Enough to be concerned this was on the heels of Floyd and yes, a responsibility to at least get informed and pay attention to the outcome.  I do agree this is everyone's problem, not just the black community.  If we, people that are less affected, go on ignoring these blatant crimes and misuse of power, that's a problem, we become part of the problem.  I do get that, I read the protest signs and pondered them, at first a little annoyed anyone was trying to guilt me into action but there's enough truth and good intention in the message to get my attention.  

But these folks need our help in numbers to make change and it should never be okay but worse now, that more people are made aware it's happening. So to know and continue to allow it with a blind eye is no longer a choice we should choose.  And the truth is, but what is not being talked about, is that so many of us 'other' people have been victims of lessor but disturbing power plays by cops too in our lives.  I know in my house we've talked of more than a few incidents and have even been together a couple of times when it happened.  Some people get into those jobs and use them as a tool to play out their crazy, sick, psychosis.  I've seen it in the extreme first hand. So,without even hearing all the detailed facts, it's not that big of a stretch for me to believe this is all really happening to folks less protected by status and class in society on the regular.  

But even putting aside responsibility,  how much can one take on, competently and truly?  When these complicated issues pile up you find yourself overwhelmed and unable to do much of anything but get yourself all upset and feeling deflated and tired.  Prioritizing is even tricky.  The election is coming at us like the unpredictable waves of Cabo San Lucas.  We're the flailing tourists who one moment were sunning happily but suddenly now are caught in the undertow on the beach unable to get up before the next bigger wave hits, and yes, some drunk and stupid but others of us were just living our lives, ignorant to how powerful the ocean can be.  This never ends well on the videos I watch late at night.   

Us before the election

We're all spent mentally from this Pandemic and what it's done to our everyday lives.  The discourse in society around the cops, our public servants bringing on this disruption by their years of bad behavior within their precincts and no one making them accountable.  I'm willing to believe that issue is so much bigger than that because nothing is simple anymore.  We have so much history, bad blood, old problems, poor leaders, years of corruption.  These types of things spin a brain like mine.  For someone like me, just a girl trying to enjoy her day off it feels like being hit with wave after wave and my inability to catch up or get a proper grip on solid ground has now become yet another problem to tackle.  

Before social disorder could hit the streets and because my grocery is across the street from Barclays Center, the starting place for all protests, I ran to the store for dinner and found this nice fresh, wheat pizza dough and thought to create a flatbread using grated sweet potatoes, Italian sausage, spinach and onions.  Lots of garlicky olive oil for good measure and of course cheese.  It was definitely a hit and a surprise even to me since I haven't made anything impressive in weeks.   

To this point I have not been a protester, I have never marched for anything.  I've thought about it.  The virus definitely squashed those thoughts previously but I will find a way that's true to myself to help.  When it's this specific though, I need to have all the facts and I'm still absorbing them.  As a matter of fact 20 minutes ago, I was sent the Definitive Breonna Taylor story, or so I'm told.  This made me realize, and maybe I've been slow to get this but we're no longer just protesting bad cops but our entire legal system if we are not able to accept the verdicts.  That would be more of a tsunami.