This is a recurring motif of mine. Some of you may be familiar with its earlier incarnations, as a riff, even an oft repeated one. The last day of the year, 2006, is an appropriate time, of course, for reflection. And thus, I indulge, perhaps even overindulge, and bring a little too much of the personal into this political sphere.
After the break, a few reflective, even critically self-reflective thoughts at the dawning of this end of another year.
My son walked down to the GW Parkway this evening to watch the passing motorcade carrying former President Gerald R. Ford to the US Capitol. As an almost 10 year old he watched, and recognized it was important, but upon asking, he couldn't really reproduce anything. Far more important to him (and to me, I must confess) was the fact that each of us had spent our first Christmas without my father, who passed away this fall. True, a President was dead, but he was a very distant figure. Still, he saw a moment of history and may, one day, be able to reproduce this moment as an actual memory.
My son was equally unaware that Saddam Hussein had been publically executed, by hanging, yesterday. I, of course, was slightly more aware of that fact, and saw some strange echoes and parallels between the beginnings of the state funeral services for our 38th President and the yellow journalism buzz that circulated around the discussion of the public execution of the former Iraqi leader/dictator/thug. There are diaries a plenty on this subject here at dKos, and I've commented on a few. I'd thought at one point about writing specifically on the topic of Saddam's execution, but decided such a focus would somehow render Saddam, or George W. or even Americans, and certainly me, far too central a set of figures to those events. Best, instead to leave it to the Iraqi bloggers and citizens who actually live the mess our fearless leaders have created, to provide the necessary commentary.
My reflections, instead, are far more personal in nature, and by definition, far more self-indulgent. But the year has been a painful one, debilitating in many ways. For that reason I call upon my friends here in the community. Not a large group as there aren't many here who would recognize me anymore, let alone put themselves in a grouping called "friends". But a few, I know still dance in and out: Big Tent Democrat, Pastor Dan, Miss Laura, McJoan, Claude, perhaps if he's still around, MB I would hope, and any others with the patience and the willingness to plod through some ugly stuff and help me out a bit here tonight. I'm in trouble and I need some reflections from some point outside myself.
I've spent the better part of this year trying just to stay alive; fighting a brain chemistry and an organ that sought to kill me. And it came pretty damn close, twice, this year. Its an odd sort of realization to confront your own brain, especially in a case like mine, where it is my brain that has always defined me, set me apart as a human being. A hard lesson to come to understand that this brain I have always counted on, that can also be my greatest nemesis. Psychiatry calls it depression. I've asked myself if it isn't also called fate, in other circles: the simple act of confronting your greatest conceit and having it turn against you in some way. But I fall into my drama queen mode here, and must pull myself back from such small indulgences.
Its a hard thing to know that you cannot take care of your own child and to recognize that you must find others who can do it for you while you are unable. A harder thing still to figure out how to stay alive when you don't really want to, knowing you have a responsibility to that child, but recognizing at the same time that you cannot let the child become the reason you live. If you are to live, to continue to live, you have to find the reason within yourself, not within the child, for such a burden is far too great for him to have to bear. Its a very easy thing to want to die. Its a pretty easy thing to let yourself die, when you so desire. Harder still, to make yourself live in such an instance. But the most difficult, by far, is to find the motivation within yourself (not to look outside and to others, because God knows, and now you do, too, that that is cheating) to keep on living. While living is a responsibility you have to others, it isn't a burden you can place on them. Separating out the two is a task for theologians, philosophers and thinkers far more advanced than I. Its not a task for a simple single mom, and a severely underemployed one. How the hell can I approach such questions without becoming so full of myself that I become the narcissim queen of 2007? These are my reflections here at the dawn of a new year.
Or is it best to simply let such questions rest and return to the issue of public executions of dictators in the age of George W. Bush?
I'm at a loss at the moment, and thus I turn to others. Forgive me the self-indulgence, please.