Trump has been indicted. Again.
I wish I cared. But I have to be honest, I’m feeling a little underwhelmed by it all. Maybe it’s just because I know an indictment is not a conviction or – even better – dying while tweeting on a prison toilet with an illegal cell phone he had to have smuggled up Eric’s ass. Maybe it’s because the unprocessed trauma of the last 7 years has left me in perpetual freeze mode, my brain unable to feel most things. Maybe it’s because even from jail he could still get elected President by the hateful bigots and willfully ignorant and craven opportunists who make up the GOP. Or maybe it’s because after 4 years of Trump, 2 of a global pandemic, losing Roe, criminal inflation and a strike, I’m just too busy holding my shitshow of a present together. I really wish I could celebrate; I really wish I could feel anything but just constant panic and dread. Maybe when he’s in a jumpsuit that matches his face. Or maybe I’ll still be too panicked.
This isn’t to say you shouldn’t feel joy in it. I just don’t right now. And I think we have to stop forcing people who’ve been wronged to seek a silver lining in everyone else figuring shit out when it’s too late.
We have a ridiculous saying: Better late than never. But I want to call bullshit on that. Frankly, that phrase sounds like a positive spin on a shit sandwich. That’s what you say to someone who was right all along, but no one believed them until it was too late. This adage for Pollyannas claims it’s never too late. But we know differently.
Damage has been done. Lives lost. Our world is so much worse as a result of Donald Trump being President, all because not enough people could see what many of us did all along. “Better late than never” is no comfort to those who are suffering because some clueless people are slow on the uptake or need to burn it all down before they can feel compassion for - or learn from- others.
Better late than never…I have news for everyone, we’re getting closer to never. I don’t have as much life left in me as I did 7 years ago. I don’t have time for everyone else to keep catching up.
I used to get comfort from the people who later came to me and validated my feelings after the fact. The people who didn’t get something at first, but now understood. Now it only angers me. You know what’s comforting? Being heard the first time. Being respected enough for someone to give credence to your feelings, if for no other reason than because it’s what you actually experienced; because it’s your life that will be changed for the worse.
Maybe better late than never is only better if you actually do better. The next time. And the time after that. Otherwise, we’re just going to keep making the same mistakes that negatively impact other people’s lives, often irrevocably. They don’t need adages. They need prevention. The earlier the better.