Is it over yet?

Can I stop acting “as if” this life is normal? As it should be? That all is well in the world?

Turning It Off

At the beginning of 2026, I had to make a huge decision: I had to choose between keeping up with the “news” and living some semblance of a peaceful life.

I opted for the latter.

Off went MSNBC (MS NOW) and CNN. Off went Abby Phillip and Rachel Maddow. Off—in my mind, anyway—went Bill Maher, whom I decided I no longer adore, or even like. All of these media personages who, at one time—in fact, just last year—meant a whole hell of a lot to me. They voiced opinions that I cared about and usually agreed with.

But they also brought the faces and voices of satanic bobbleheads inhabiting all three branches of government—especially the executive, but all three—into my life on a daily basis.

This could no longer be withstood.

My blood boiled daily. I was suddenly thrown into conflict with seemingly half of my community and even members of my own family. Every time I turned around, I seemed to be getting into another heated (quite heated) argument that left me feeling as if my blood pressure had shot through the roof. My sleep was affected. I could not conduct myself in a composed way much of the time.

This was not the stuff of a good life.

Living “As If”

So I began acting “as if.”

Not as if everything was wonderful. I couldn’t manage that degree of delusion. I simply began acting as if none of it existed. As if there were no government to check on, no White House to worry about, no latest outrage requiring my immediate attention. I stopped allowing people I had never met—and never wanted to meet—to take up residence in my head.

I went about the business of my own little life instead.

Little Leaks in the Fortress

And now . . . there are little leaks coming through the walls of the fortress. I keep hearing things about an upcoming “blue tsunami.”

Oh yeah?

Well, I believe I have heard that one before.

So ’scuse me if I don’t start singing or celebrating quite yet. Any moment, the hammer may fall again.

The evil bobbleheads have not vanished. The foolishness has not disappeared. People continue to fall for things that leave me wondering whether we are all inhabiting the same country, the same reality, or even approximately the same planet.

Some people say they are leaving.

Canada. Portugal. Uruguay. Thailand. Anywhere but here.

Yet many do not leave. Because IT ISN’T THAT EASY for the multitudes of people who have spent their lives here to simply pack up and abandon everything they have ever known.

And so . . . it is with great hope that I wait for this grand fog of foolishness and fatigue to lift.

Maybe the midterms????

But let’s face it. Even if the midterms bring the change I am hoping for, it will not all simply disappear—like tears in rain.

There will still be two more years.

The satanic potatohead Cankles MacTaco Tits* will still be there. The executive branch will still be the executive branch. And I will still have to decide how much of it I can allow back into my consciousness without losing my mind all over again.

What Happens to Us?

Can I ever reconnect with the friends or relatives I have lost? Can I ever stop wondering whether I am shopping next to “one of them”? Will they ever stop wondering the same thing about me?

Can people who have spent years eyeing one another suspiciously from opposite tribes suddenly remember that they once loved one another? That they once sat at the same dinner tables, celebrated the same birthdays, laughed at the same stupid jokes?

I don’t know.

I hope so.

Because maybe then I can stop acting “as if.”

Maybe then I can be reunited not only with them, but with the self I sent underground while I learned how to live “as if.”

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Note:

• Please give all due credit to Jennifer Welch of the podcast “I’ve Had It,” for this endearing nickname.