Our Rage is Our Love

Jami Ingledue — BEHIND DOMESTIC LINES

Image by Ashling McKeever

I am so tired.

I am tired of calling my senators. I am tired of thinking we can’t sink any lower, only to see things getting worse. I’m tired of spending my free time organizing and writing emails. I’m tired of being so angry at the soulless liars who have the audacity to get up there and lie to our faces over and over and over again. I’m tired of the feeling of constant stress and fear, and I’m tired of trying to sound the alarm as our country slides closer and closer to fascism, day by day. I’m tired of wondering how that sentence can even be possible.

I’m tired of having my heart broken over and over again.

But my rage will not allow me to rest.

Because this rage — this is not hate. This rage is born of love, it is the child of the heart, and just like a child of my body, some days it is the only thing that keeps me going, that keeps me from sinking into despair and inaction, that gets me out of bed in the morning, that gives me the will and the strength to keep going, one foot at a time in front of the other, on days when I feel like maybe sinking sounds like the way to go.

Rage can eat us alive, make no mistake, and it must be handled carefully, like a fire — or a toddler. We’ve got to care for ourselves or it will burn us up and burn us out. I’ve learned to live with my rage like a fire (or a toddler) — feed it when it needs to be fed, protect it from the forces that would harm it, but keep it from completely consuming me and destroying everything around me.

And now, like the mother-child bond, I’ve come to see it as sacred. Right now it is my love letter to the world, to the children of the world, to my own children. It is the rage of Shiva, the creator and the destroyer. Sometimes love requires us to smash things, to destroy.

And we will. Tear it all down and smash it to the ground. Because this is our chance to pull people out of complacency, to demand that they draw their line in the sand, to decide which side of history they will be on. This is not about politics and whose side you’re on. This is about being on the right side of history.

Are you on the side of Japanese internment camps? The side of “re-education” for Native Americans…