Broken
Dear friends, I am broken. I am tired and angry and frustrated, too. But the overwhelming thing I feel is broken. I have watched my country become something almost unrecognizable over the past four years, and it is becoming ever clearer that we may have another four years of this. And I cry. I cry for all the people who have been fighting this fight for longer than I have. I cry because I’m just not strong enough. Because I have reached my limit. And now I’m broken.
I have always wanted to know why people do what they do. I could not understand how people stood so firmly in their prejudices—against blacks, women, LGBTQ+, immigrants. How anyone could profess to love the values and foundations of this country while simultaneously denying others the freedoms and protections its governing documents guaranteed. And while some only passively permitted others to engage in such behaviors, others actively advocated for such things.
And I became fascinated with Germany and the Holocaust. In my naïveté, I believed that people must not have known what was happening. I believed that when we know better, we do better. I was wrong.
I recently listened to a talk given by the Holocaust survivor for whom my daughter was named. It was given a few years before I met her. I had a cassette tape of the speech that I was keeping for my daughter, so she could hear her namesake tell her story in her own words. I had already read the books she had written. I knew the things I was going to hear. The bittersweet sound of her voice, now that she has passed, put me on the verge of tears before she said more than “Thank you.” But hearing her relive her horror. Explain she couldn’t even give us a glimpse of 1/100th of the evil and horror she experienced in the 20 minutes she spoke. Impress upon us that the whole point of putting herself through the misery and emotional drain of retelling her story was to make sure people knew what happened so that in the future, those who remained after she was gone, could make sure it never happened again.
And yet, here we are. Kids in cages sleeping on cold cement without pillows or blankets; inadequate water and unsanitary conditions; denied education, medication, and air conditioning; being molested and sexually assaulted; some deported “home” without their families; dying from intentional neglect. Seeing people show complete disinterest in the suffering of these children or, worse, argue that they “asked for it.” My heart is shattered to see just how many mean people advocating for suffering and death there are—many of whom declare themselves to be “good Christians” and “Pro-life.” They either don’t see their hypocrisy or don’t care. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like someone. They do not deserve torture, neglect, abuse, or inhumane treatment. No one does. Full stop. No exceptions.
I get that others disagree with me. And that’s okay. I have never needed someone to agree with me in order to be their friend. I don’t want to live in an echo chamber. I will boisterously assert the rightness of my opinion, have it challenged, sit with my thoughts later, adopt the contrary position wholeheartedly, and admit I was wrong. That’s how we learn; how we discover if our positions remain valid or need reconsideration. What I adored about my diverse friends was our ability to love and support one another even though we didn’t agree.
Sadly, over the last four years, it feels as though every single aspect of our lives has become political. We can’t even agree to be kind and listen to one another. And although I have worked very hard to maintain my relationships with friends who think differently than I, they have not returned the favor. Only a few have unfriended me, but it has become abundantly clear that I have been hidden or muted or whatever. Direct private messages about things not even remotely political went unread and unanswered. I took time to check out their feeds and see how they were doing, commenting on pictures and memes as appropriate, but they never wrote a single thing on anything I posted.
So the time has come for me to stop. I cannot keep pouring energy into relationships that are not nourishing me. Life is hard. COVID has made it harder. I need to protect my limited resources. But I want to be clear. Disagreement doesn’t wear me out. Debate and policy discussions don’t suck me dry of energy. Ignorance, hate, and indifference, however, they leave me sick. Exhausted. Broken-hearted. Worse, I know these people personally. Have seen the love and humanity in their hearts. Shared some of my hardest and lowest moments with them. Been held up by them. And I will forever be connected to them. And I will always love them. But the time has come to say goodbye. They have shown me that they don’t need my energy; that they don’t want it. So I’m going to stop throwing it away and, instead, use it places that will feed my soul. And one of those places is going to be continuing the word of my daughter’s namesake—making sure people know and remember the Holocaust. It must never, never happen again, and we are far too close for comfort.
Black Lives Matter.
Immigrant Lives Matter.
Trans Lives Matter.
Jewish Lives Matter.
Peaceful Protester Lives Matter.
