It’s the start of a new era. Except, it isn’t.
It’s the start of a new era.
It’s a return to normalcy.
The beginning of the rest of our lives.
I hate to burst your bubble, but none of the above are true.
Let me offer an analogy to help explain my ‘why’.
Let’s say that 4 years ago you entered into a relationship. It turned out to be one of the most emotionally devastating, personally destructive relationships you’ve ever been in.
Your beau or lady — you discovered too late — was a textbook narcissist. They negged you, they gaslit you, and, after 3 years and some months, when you’d finally had enough and told them you were leaving, they got violent.
You called the police. They took forever to come, and by the time they got there s/he had gone, and the police spent much of their time questioning you and your behaviors and choices.
No matter. You changed your number. Got a new haircut. A new pair of Chucks. Moved on with your life. And in a few short months, you found a new love interest. S/he is completely different. Not perfect mind you, but not any of the crazy that you just left behind.
And now, everything is going to go back to the way it was before.
Except…
Those shadows that were raised in your toxic relationship are still lingering.
You think of all your family and friends who encouraged the relationship. You think of the people who saw the signs of abuse and said nothing, did nothing. You recall that some of them — when you expressed your concern about your beloved’s bad behavior — implied that maybe you deserved it. Maybe you needed to be taken down a peg, taught a lesson. You think of the police — especially the 1 you recognized from church — who answered your distress call, how they seemed unconcerned about your wellbeing, how they really only did paperwork and made no effort to find or charge the one who threatened your health and safety.
You look at your new beau or lady and think, s/he’s going to make me forget all about this. It’ll be fine in just a few months. Those friends who thought I deserved worse will suddenly be happy for me. The cop who did nothing to help me? Well, I’m sure karma will take care of that. And as for how you ended up in a toxic 4-year relationship to begin with?
Well. That was just bad luck. A fluke.
It had nothing to do with the unresolved issues of your past. Nothing to do with the kind of relationship role models you saw when you were growing up. It makes you shudder to think how some of the arguments you and toxic bae had sounded just like the ones your parents and grandparents used to have. Hell, that kind of relationship was damned near standard back in their day… it’s just the way things were.
But. It’s not like that anymore. You’re not like that. Never were. You just grew up steeped in it. And you love your parents and grandparents too much to critique them too harshly, even if you could never live as they did.
And this new relationship is proof. So now, all you gotta do is focus on the future. Eyes ahead, hand in hand with your new boo. Shadows of the past be damned. Be unexamined. Be gone!
It is tempting, once you have escaped from a bad time, a terrible situation, an ill-intentioned person to move on and never look back. Just erase the memory of that experience as if it never happened. It certainly wasn’t your fault. Just focus on the positive.
Here’s a hard truth:
Bad relationships are meant to teach us something. They show us where we’ve either normalized bad behavior from ‘the other’ or where we lack the ability to discern who is bad or good to be in relationship with.
If we don’t stop and really dig deep for an answer to the question: ‘Why didn’t I see that coming?’
We won’t see it coming the next time.
If we take the time to examine these shadow parts of ourselves, to closely and quietly (and non-emotionally) zoom in on things that we normally don’t investigate because the answers are not obvious or because we don’t want to look over there, we may find that…
… the call is coming from inside the house.
That is, we normalized the toxic behavior because it was already normal for us. Our internal early warning system didn’t go off because something about this toxicity felt familiar. We learned or saw this bad behavior at an early age, but we called it by another name that made it sound ok, normal, maybe even desirable.
Until we call those things by their real names, they will still exist. Hidden in plain sight.
America is a country founded with 2 main ingredients that still exist:
Religious separatists seeking to establish a monoculture while claiming persecution from an unjust government (otherly named: pilgrims)
Racism as a primary enabler of economic advantage (otherly named: slavery)
In the past 4 years, we have seen these 2 ingredients being whipped up and poured on by a heavy-handed chef that was cooking up a dish of political and cultural chaos to serve as his near-limitless narcissistic supply. And we all indulged in the dish. We have eaten it up. Every news headline, every shocking speech, every unhinged tweet, we have gobbled it up, passed it around among ourselves like heavy hors d’oeuvres at a fancy dress party.
The person standing on your left says,
Did you see?
Here taste this.
You: Ew! Disgusting. Blechh. I can’t believe they’d serve such shitty food!
But we all kept eating. Some of us actually enjoying the flavor.
We grew up with these flavors. They are traditional American flavors. The tuna casserole and spam salad of our past.
And until we admit to ourselves,
I like tuna casserole and spam salad because it reminds me of my childhood.
I ended up in a toxic relationship because i was raised around toxic relationships and came to view them as normal.
I am a proud and loyal citizen of a country founded on religious separatism and white supremacy as its primary socioeconomic drivers,
And sit with what that means. With how that implicates us as well as the others around us.
Well, then… today is just another day.
Happy inauguration day, chirren.