I Can't Tell You What's Coming

My dog knows there’s something wrong, and he’s anxious. He hasn’t mastered the art of doomscrolling, and I don’t think he takes much in from the news podcasts we listen to, but he can tell that I’m worried, which makes him worried, which in turns makes me worried, which in turn… well, you get the idea.

It breaks my heart that I can’t keep my friends safe from anxiety, and it breaks my heart even more that I can’t keep this four year old mutt safe from anxiety. He’s got long walks and he’s got as-needed trazodone, and those things help, but I suspect it would help more if all the humans in his life weren’t wound up balls of stress, staring at an uncertain future.

The news is sending waves of stress through us, leaving fractures across our bodies. Or at least it’s fracturing me and some of the people I care about. Most people I know are tired, stressed, and grouchy right now, and when they get together they make one another tired, stressed, and grouchy. Our friendships, relationships, and communities are all strained by what’s going on.

I don’t have any solutions here, not other than the things you already know, like that we need to be offering one another grace now more than ever. We need to be assuming best intentions of everyone we care about. We need to practice our empathy and our conflict de-escalation. We need to build community even when sometimes all we want to do is to be left alone.

We also, maybe more than anything else, need to remember we are strong. And that our enemies are just people, the same as us. Mortal, the same as us.

It’s weeks like this that I’m grateful I’m not a hot take writer. When you write—and talk—for a living, there’s this incessant pressure to know exactly what to say about every news story, every political development. There’s good money in offering people ragebait or reassurance. Saying “everything is fucked” or “everything is fine” is a good way to build your platform.

As mad as I am sometimes at the hot take machine, I’m not mad at the people who live inside of it and make it run. It takes a certain kind of bravery to come out swinging with an opinion every week. I just don’t want to do it.

I don’t want ...