Tiny Bits of Treasure #1 | Don't Give Up

All day I felt the need to write down my feelings and now… I don’t have anything good to say. Nothing uplifting to say. Nothing pithy or patriotic. Nothing brave or beautiful. I don’t have the energy or capacity to be profound or wise. I feel nothing and everything. But not like 2016. 

In the days leading up to the election in 2016 I let myself exist a bubble of hope I wanted so desperately to be real.

I thought everyone could easily see the wolf in Trump’s ill-fitting sheep’s clothing. The result was a punch in the gut and I sunk into a deep despair. 

My husband will say that I’ve always been passionate and I’ve always had a flair for the righteous and dramatic. But at the end of 2016? He’ll tell you – I became angry. Cynical. Resentful. Dark.

He’s right. 

In my defense, we had had a hard year. 

Pre-election 2016, I let myself exist a bubble of hope I needed to endure more pain and hardship. 

Our seventh year of marriage began with emergency responders charging up our stairs to our bedroom because our youngest son was experiencing his fifth febrile seizure. After his fourth seizure, Mike and I had agreed that we no longer needed to call the paramedics every time because, hey, what’s so scary about your 18 month old having full body convulsions that turn his lips and eyelids purple anyway? We thought we had it under control. But then seizure #5 came with new symptoms including vomit pouring out of our son’s mouth and nose simultaneously while he shook unconsciously so, ya know, we called 911 at 10pm on cold January night. 

Weeks later, after fearing it would happen and trying to thwart it, our friend committed suicide. 

The next month, we began extensive and disruptive work on our home that we couldn’t totally afford, so the following month, I took on more hours at work while trying to be the default parent to our young sons. I mom’d during the day, worked late into the night, and ate and ate and ate to stay awake and quell my stress

Two months after that, one of my cornerstone people – someone vital to my personal story and growth – died of lung cancer at age 47. It threw my world off balance. I’m still processing that loss.

A week later I rear-ended a government vehicle when they abruptly stopped while creeping up a hill with the sun in our eyes. I was coming home from my father’s US citizenship ceremony. After being a green card carrying Brit in the US for 40 years, he was legit and going to vote in his first election. 

A month after that, my husband's daily bike ride to work was cut short when he slammed on the brakes to avoid crashing into a car that hadn’t signaled their intent to turn before turning right in front of him. He does not remember what happened next. I got a phone call asking for the wife of Michael Holt from San Francisco General’s Brain Trauma Department. His helmet was cracked in two, and he did a concussion study for 18 months afterwards, but he lived. 

Throughout this time period, our eldest son’s asthma was getting more and more severe and we had rushed him to the doctor and Urgent Care multiple times before getting him on the right regime right around Halloween. 

Also throughout this time period, our youngest son continued to have febrile seizures whenever he got sick, and we were rushing him to the ER when we felt out of our depths. 

So yeah. By November 2016, I was exhausted from caring and caretaking and working and surviving and ensuring my people survived. I needed hope. I needed to believe that we could elect a woman – a very capable woman – to lead the country towards progress and equality.

And it didn’t happen.

And I snapped when Trump won. Something in my brain changed, wires in my personality rewired themselves. And I suddenly became furious at my fellow Americans for the choice they made. I loathed them, and I loathed people who tolerated them, because I didn’t. I couldn’t.

Today, I don’t feel that same hot heat of hatred. I’m not shaking with anger and grief like I did eight years ago because I’m not surprised by Trump’s win; I’ve been expecting it. 

I did allow the few days ahead of the election to stir up some hope in me.

As the polls shifted toward a Harris victory I got excited and energized. I phone-banked for Pennsylvania and Georgia up until 3pm ET on Election Day and blasted Beyonce’ “Freedom” (the Homecoming version) driving around the city, doing my school pick-ups and drop-offs. 

But I always had an inkling. I always had a voice telling me: everyone is still out there.

Everyone that voted for him before.

Everyone who hates Biden if not for policy, then on principle, because they’ve been *told* he’s leading the country astray.

Everyone who just can’t seem to believe that a woman could be in charge of the White House, even though, if they were honest, they’d admit that a woman was in charge of their own home. 

Everyone is still out there, hating the idea that someone else might be better off while they suffer.

Everyone tired of suffering is still out there.

And so the votes came in. And around 8pm Pacific I cried into my husband’s chest knowing we were through. I did bedtime with my boys, kissing their necks extra and I went to bed on time at 10pm. I just wanted it all to go away. 

Then the winds started. The San Francisco Bay Area has these “red flag warning” days where the winds are extra intense. I woke up as a gust of wind hit the bay window of our bedroom. I lay there, silent and still, for a few moments, trying to guess what time it was. I rolled over and tapped my phone: 3:12am. And then I saw the stacked news notifications and knew. Game over. Trump won. 

The wind continued to howl – nature always knows, right? – and I debated what to do. I asked myself if I had any tears? Not yet. 

What about anger? Nausea? Both were at bay for the minute. I felt numb more than anything. So I asked what I could do, what was in my control at that moment, to improve my life and the lives of the people around me, and the answer was to simply sleep. 

Rest. Rest up. 

And it took some time, and the wind kept howling, but I managed to sleep a couple more hours. 

Then, this morning I read this:

And it was the reality check I needed. The balm I needed. I sent it to my mom and saved it on my phone. 

Then I laced up my shoes and took our puppy, Samwise Gamgee, a rescue golden retriever mix for a walk. 

I got to watch the sun rise over San Francisco today. The wind had pushed the clouds out of the way, and I could see the Farallon Islands from the top of the USF steps. 

I saw and heard so many birds announcing the arrival of the sun. I didn’t stop to record what I saw and heard but there was quite a resounding chorus in the trees along Golden Gate Avenue.

Sam and I chatted with the security admin at a local school, and I met a women with three tiny Yorkies, two of whom love Sam and like to lick his nose (the third, Coco, is a killjoy and loathes Sam’s puppy energy). 

When I got home, I had enough time to hug and kiss my children and check in on their feelings about, well, everything. I took a hot shower and had hot coffee while driving my middle schooler to school. Then my husband and I debriefed and worked and talked and worked and hugged and worked. 

And as the day went on I kept thinking… This life is littered with little treasures. 

This whole time I’ve been viewing life as treasure that gets littered with trash from time to time. A beautiful thing that gets hard and messy every once in a while. Case in point? My whole “2016 was a year where bad things happened to good people” dissertation. 

This, I’m realizing, is a privileged view. “Mostly good, sometimes bad” is a privileged lens. 

What if, life is actually hard and messy on the daily – just constantly. AND. And there are little treasures everywhere? 

And it made me think: 

Today, on a day so fraught, I had my girlfriends to text and my parents to talk to. My folks are still living and just a phone call away. They are coming over for chili tomorrow, after picking my children up from school. We treasure them, which is why we invite them and other beloved family and friends over for mid-week meal. What a gift. 

I got to breathe without trying, and see the sky change from dusk to bright blue and back to black. My kids both had friend time after school, and I got to be a part of it. They (my sons and their friends) told me their reaction to the election, we talked about their questions and opinions. I treasure these conversations. These moments when I can see their brains fire with information and ideas. 

For dinner I had everything on hand to make my family’s favorite pasta sauce for a big bowl of comfort food: spaghetti and meatballs. Delicious food shared with my family. A puppy gnawing on ice cubes at our feet. A warm, bright home on a dark, windy night. More treasure. 

Of course I still have big feelings about the election, and I will continue to feel passionately about another Trump Administration.

I am scared and angry. 

I’m anxious for my personhood as a woman, for my mother’s personhood as a senior disabled woman, for my gay son’s rights, for my children’s health. For our friends and families who don’t live in very blue cities in very blue states, for our marginalized fellow citizens and humans who are just trying to find a tiny bit of treasure in the trash heap that is a patriarchal society.

I don’t know what the future holds, but the country I woke up in today is the same one I went to sleep in last night. It’s hard and messy here. But there is treasure in the small, everyday moments with the people closest to me. And I bet there’s more to be found by volunteering, organizing, and engaging with my communities in new and familiar ways. And I’m determined to seek it out. 

It’s energizing, this small stuff. It’s restorative and critical. Without it, we can’t go on. 

So if I’m allowed a righteous plea, it’s to please, seek it out with me. Make it a habit to find tiny bits of treasure among the muck. Find enough for yourself every day so that you make it to the next one. Share your treasure with others as often as you energetically, financially, emotionally can. 

Don’t give up. 

Don’t let the hard and messy be all that’s left. There is treasure here, tiny bits of treasure, I know it. We can look for it together.