A few weeks before the election, I started to manic clean my home. As in, bought a steam mop clean. Organized every closet and cabinet clean. Climbed a ladder and wiped down the ceiling fan blades clean.
As far as the election, I was feeling naively hopeful for humanity, but my animal body would never forget the horrific surprise of 2016, so I thought I was prepared for whatever would happen. I thought the cleaning was just my normal wintering pattern, shoring up proverbial nuts for the long, dark winter.
The older I get, the more wintering becomes a season in its own right. And menopause wintering is something altogether new. I deleted Facebook. I sleep 9 or 10 hours a night, eat enough soup, potatoes, and bread to easily double my daily caloric input compared to summer. Unless you’re in my inner circle, texts and emails have gone largely ignored. Any time not working is spent couch rotting, reading thrillers, or binging Hulu.
But this year it feels less like I am wintering and more like I am prepping for … something. Something bad. It feels a little like Y2K, when everyone hoarded water and batteries for the inevitable fall of technology.
I think I have been prepping for the next four years. Prepping for the dismantling of our government and our social safety nets. Prepping for a world where incompetence and corruption rule the day, where profit matters more than people, where the rich get richer and everyone else suffers.
The January 20 presidential inauguration is on track to be the “most lucrative yet.” Donations to Trump’s inaugural fund are not restricted by campaign finance laws, so many self-serving oligarchs are using their dollars to curry favor with the incoming administration. Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Ford, Toyota, and Uber are all giving at least a million dollars to gain influence and access with Trump (and, let’s be honest, Elon).
Trump has publicly stated he would fast-track and approve any permit request made to the government if the person or company filing donates 1 billion dollars to the U.S. Treasury. Basically, if you are rich enough, you can now bribe the U.S. government into doing your bidding with no regard to environmental impact.
Elon Musk will certainly use that promise to expedite permits for SpaceX. Trump also made Musk the leader of the newly created DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, a made-up office that won’t be a federal executive department, so it doesn’t need Congress’ approval. Elon’s first order of business was to kill a bipartisan bill that would fund research for pediatric cancer. So, billionaires who want to go to Mars win while kids with leukemia die.
It isn’t just that Harris lost the election. Liberty and justice have lost. We have all lost.
No wonder I’ve been so withdrawn. I’m prepping for a dark time, prepping to help those who will suffer most, prepping to say the right, hard things in a world that doesn’t want to hear them.
It’s apt I write this at the solstice, a time of waiting for a return of the sun. It is also Advent season, a time of waiting for a return of the son (who was, ahem, both an immigrant and a refugee). Symbolically, this is a time of darkness, a time to prepare for brighter days.
May we all prepare to show up as the best version of ourselves. I’m prepping to show up with as much compassion and kindness as I can.
