It’s hard to get away from grief. I’ve seen and heard it everywhere. I am involved in a makeshift Zoom support group that covers topics on mental health. Our next assigned topic is grief. Then, I read John Pavlovitz’s last piece on grief and of course you get inundated every day with others’ grief on social media. It’s not a bad thing necessarily. People feel better when they share. It just forces us to deal with our own stuff. I think what hits me more than anything is the grief over what has happened to us as a country. If one were to define grief, they would define it as something we’ve lost. Most of the time that is a person in our life. It is a family member, a friend, or someone we work with. A lot of the time it is death, but it could simply be the end of a relationship.

We grieve other things as well. We grieve the end of a chapter of our lives. That could be childhood in general. It could be the end of a career or a particular job. It could be watching the end of a particular stage in our children’s lives. With loss comes change and change can be a scary thing. Sometimes it is for the better, but it often brings unique challenges we might not be prepared to face.

Today, I find myself grieving the loss of a nation. No, the United States hasn’t gone anywhere technically. Yet, many have called it the greatest country in the world. No, I’m not going to launch into a “we used to be the greatest country in the world” tirade like on HBO. After all, what we rank in math, science, literacy, or anything else has little to do with why we were the greatest country in the world.

We were the greatest country because we had some of the greatest problems in the world. We had the greatest problems and we were always willing to tackle them. Sometimes we won and sometimes we lost, but we never backed down from a fight. Moreover, we usually found the better angels of our nature. Goodness knows it was never easy, but we found it within ourselves to fight.

Whether it was the battle over all types of equality, suffrage, or simply getting a handle on our own limitations and prejudices we managed to overcome for the most part. Unlike most wars, these battles are never over and the job is never complete. Yet, some people want to declare victory and move on.

We used to be the greatest country in the world. We aren’t the greatest country anymore. We aren’t because we are no longer willing to even try to tackle the problems before us. It isn’t even so much whether we solve those problems necessarily. We aren’t even willing to try. We deny they exist. Out of sight and out of mind.

Grief is a deeply personal thing. When one grieves a loss that is not tangible it becomes especially difficult. Do we hang on with quiet desperation? Do we find ourselves living in the past and reminiscing on better times? In the case of grieving the loss of a nation we can choose to bail or we can refuse to admit defeat. We can shout from the rooftops that the job is not yet done. We can vote out those that refuse to even address the real problems we have. That will be my choice. The rest is up to you.

Sorry for being a little quiet, lately, y’all. I’m trying to help Ms. JJ while she’s out but I have been in one of those short-lived (I hope) periods of emotional overwhelm. Call it what you like, depression, grief – it’s that rock on my chest that refuses to move when I try to get out of bed. I walk around with a smile on my face, doing my daily business with a smile, all the while with knees shaking and my head repeating “just go back to bed. just go lay down. Just go close your eyes.”

My photos will show me smiling and at that moment, I’m genuine! But the happiness flitters away, the smile recedes, and the boulder settles itself back on my chest.

It’s been a tough year. So many of the comforts of a passing year that give us hope for renewal were just missing for a year. For me, baseball season is and has always been the ultimate symbol of everything being right in the world. My daddy always said there are three things you can always look forward to: Death, Taxes, and Opening Day. I used to get a phone call the first day pitchers and catchers reported to spring training. “Pitchers and Catchers Report!” he’d yell. I’d make an inane comment about how fast time flies and we’d trade texts and calls for the next few months about all things baseball. This has left a huge hole in my life every baseball season and each year it becomes harder to fill. Then came the pandemic.

My heart was almost mended enough from the sign-stealing scandal to give my Astros a new shot last year, but of course, Opening Day never came. The one person I wanted to share that with, my daddy, was no longer with me. He’d have thought the people cutouts were stupid but he would have probably bought one for me.

Opening Day came and went in 2021. Things are starting to get back to normal. My husband and I are fully vaccinated and can venture, masked, out into the world. But my husband’s mama and my daddy aren’t here, and I miss them. It’s funny how grief seems to sit dormant until all of a sudden it rears its head again. Because I believe in the baseball Gods, I’ve purchased some cheap seats to visit my team this weekend. I’ll be in the nosebleeds – with the real fans – and I hope my dad will be sitting in one of the seats that have been kept open to social distance, telling me which calls were shit and which rookies to watch out for. Hopefully the Astros get the COVID outbreak under control, soon.

I’ll feed my soul with some peanuts and popcorn, a hot dog, a giant ice-cold Dr. Pepper and a big foam sombrero. Maybe next week, the sun will shine a little brighter for me.

If you’re feeling depressed and would like someone to talk to, people are waiting at (877) 870-4673. Or just get going in the comments below, we’re good people here and would love to chat. If you are having thoughts of suicide, Please call 1-800-273-8255.

Oh, and one more thing. Just since it’s a politics blog I need to keep the theme. Ted Cruz Sucks.