***I haven’t written in a long time, and because of that I now have a backlog of thoughts and feelings. I have pent up stories and experiences that could easily materialize into metaphor. But, because I haven’t taken the time for myself to get these thoughts onto paper, they’re now one jumbled mess. And the energy of them sitting dormant is now strong enough to force me through the surface. (See..told you there was metaphor….sometimes we must wait for the process to unfold in its own time ;)).

***This post turned into a bit of a political piece about the recent Alabama abortion ban. It’s a rant on some levels, but mostly I have questions for the people who are a making these decisions. Here goes…***

Last night before bed my husband told me about the Alabama abortion ban. Instantly, I was outraged. Angry to the point of tears. Even trying to write about it now, I’m stuck.

What do I say?

How do I get my point across?

What if I offend someone?

What I want to tell you is that I’m a pissed off mama bear ready to go to battle for her babies. And in many ways, I am. But I’m also scared, teetering on the edge of hopelessness. It seems it keeps going from bad to worse, ad nauseam, and I simply don’t know what to do with it all. When I’m overwhelmed my habitual response is to freeze. In this frozen state, it’s not that the emotion – the anger, rage, grief, despair – goes away; it gets trapped. It rumbles around in my mind, sometimes coming out sideways because, like any energy, it needs to go somewhere. It spills into my relationship with my husband, it clouds my view of motherhood, it changes my own reflection in the mirror.

I hate that this happens. I hate that there are no easy solutions. I hate that there are people so hell-bent on making life harder for so many so they can continue to sit on their self-created pedestals under the illusion they reign supreme.

To those people: what happens when your daughters are raped? (1 in 5 will, according to National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2018.) What happens when they get pregnant from said rape? Or a little too early in their lifetimes because of poor planning or failed contraceptives? Would you even support their babies? Can you really tell me you’d make them enter motherhood on these terms?

And if you do, do you get mental health support for your girls and their children? Do you? Because what they will now be living, and passing down for many generations, is a lifetime of trauma. And those traumatized children may grow up to keep the cycle going, on and on, like clockwork.

I’d love to know what your plans are for supporting the women and children who must now endure unimaginable pain. Pain you think you won’t ever have to confront on a personal level (until you do; no one is immune). And it’s easy to make decisions about others’ lives when you’re so far removed, isn’t it? Perhaps it’d do you good to get to know the interior of peoples’ stories before you go around waving your imagined magic wand, thinking you’re creating some kind of…I don’t even know what you think you’re creating…

So, all this to say: my heart is hurting. I’m an angry mama bear fueled by an overwhelming sadness at the state of our world. What I want us to remember, to know above all else is this:

We are the grownups of the world and hold the responsibility to create safety and security FOR EVERYONE. Banning abortion does not make people safe. It does not stop rape from happening. It perpetuates the cycle of trauma. And trauma, I believe, is the root of all of our societal problems. To change the system, we must change the system. How about starting with treating people as people?