To Inky and Kevin –

Thanks for your thoughtful input and for taking the time to share your thoughts. I’m pretty much in agreement with everything both of you say, and I am rationing my “news & news-related social media ” time more & more carefully, and working hard on cutting myself some slack for being limited in my involvement (due to my health) compared to what I would have done. I realized that frustration is also part of the big ball of anger, but that’s not his fault, that one’s on me to control and ultimately  let go of.

If you read my last reply to Anita, I think you can see I’ve begun to wend my bass-ackwards way towards a bit of an understanding/strategy that hopefully will make my life a little more liveable and maybe bring down my blood pressure a bit.

It’s actually a gross oversimplification of a small life lesson about compassion my mom taught me when I was very small. I believe it only happened once, but it stuck with me from that day forward. We were shopping in a somewhat pricey department store, and the middle-aged shop clerk who waited on us was very rude and abrupt. After we checked out & walked away, I asked my mother (who was always exceedingly polite in public) why that woman was so mean? Without missing a beat, Mom said, “oh you never know what can be bothering people. Maybe her girdle is too tight, or her shoes hurt.” So from this point on I will do my level best to remember that the man in the White House is probably actually tremendously unhappy.  And try not to enjoy it too much…..

Hi Anita! Thanks very much for taking the time to respond. I understand what you’re saying in principle but I’m afraid in practice it would be going against an essential part of my character that is so deeply-rooted that I doubt I could change it at this point in my life, and in all honesty I’m not sure I’d want to. I guess growing up during the 60’s & going through my teens in the last of the residual social change movements in the 70’s stamped it on me ineffably that I have to try to do what I can to make positive contributions to my community, country, and planet when I can. It affected my choice of career, and in my spare time I’ve always been involved in some kind of nonprofit that I can feel is somehow contributing. Part of my frustration now – which is probably amping up my feelings against the POTUS- is that my health has me nearly housebound, and prevents me from doing all I’d like to be doing: the me of 20 years ago would have been at all the marches and meetings, and probably secretary on each committee and bringing coffee and donuts! As things are now, I can share information on social media – but because that’s what I CAN do, I feel compelled to do it. I have no delusions that what I’m doing is going to change Trump, but who knows who a tweet or a post might touch, and what they might accomplish? And I’m not sure I could live with myself if I detached completely and did nothing… I feel a debt to those who have fought for change in the past, and an obligation to the generations who will come after us. It’s important to me, when all is said & done, to be able to say “I cared, & I did my best to do what I could do.”

I just need to figure out how to de-personalize it somehow, to care about it without letting it eat me up inside, to do what I can and at the same time let it go. Like I said in my original post, I’ll almost be ok, and the he takes his ghastly assaults on democracy to a new depth, and I’m seething all over again.

Again, thank you for your thoughtful response, and I will continue to consider it.