I spent yesterday in tears. Sobbing, ugly, hiccuping tears. And when I finally pulled myself together enough to head to a coffee shop, I cried silently walking the streets to the cafe, as the raindrops fell. Later I cried again. And again. And again.

I woke this morning to a haunted look on my face. And the question in my heart: “With everything going so right in my life, what could possibly have me falling apart so greatly?”

The answer is not so simple. But it starts with something that sounds almost fantastical in its phrasing - INTERNET TROLLS.

When I was a little girl, I loved the stories that included mythological creatures. There was one in which a hero had to cross a bridge. But the bridge was guarded by trolls who lived under it. You wouldn’t even know they existed, until you tried to cross the bridge. And then they appeared to extract their price - in some rather gruesome versions of the story, it was a pound of flesh. 

Interestingly, the bridges in all these stories were actually public structures. The trolls had no more right to take a fee, than did anyone else. But they felt entitled or superior. Or perhaps they merely hated others who walked boldly in plain sight while they felt they had to hide. (Although I’ve never come across a version of the story in which anyone treated them badly until the trolls struck first.)

​I’m about to let you in on a little secret I’ve been keeping:

Every time a woman does a post of themselves cooking and puts a caption “wife me up” with a cute heart eyes emoji and a simpering smile, I want to vomit in my mouth a little.

The struggle not to, is real. 

Because I wonder to myself, is this truly ALL women aspire to in 2024? 

We can be scientists, athletes, politicians, creators, artists, photographers, agricultural goddesses, writers, entrepreneurs, inventors, poets, professors, researchers, lawyers, surgeons, conservationists, sustainability leaders, jewelers, architects, philosophers, painters, engineers, deep sea divers, pilots…seriously our possibilities are limitless. 

I’m always amazed by the people who tell me HOW I should live, MUST use any influence I have, or INSTRUCT me in the way to exist on this planet as a “good person”.

Take for example my social media presence. Time and time again, I have randoms telling me how I SHOULD be posting on behalf of this cause or that cause. And that I “waste” the power I (allegedly) have by showing myself in scantily clad lingerie, or simply sharing my thoughts on living in a healthy manner.

In theory, it may be my platform to do as I like with. But “you COULD be doing more,” is the refrain I’ve heard most often from those who know me the least.

“Perhaps these anonymous faceless nameless people are right”, I thought to myself one day. “Maybe I should be doing more.”

But what exactly could I do?
​

​We are having a crisis in this country. I’m amazed that no one is actually talking about it. Oh sure you hear bits and pieces of it pop up in conversations. Usually as complaints about something personally related to them. But no one is talking about the bigger issue. The thing that has become so toxic, I’m constantly flabbergasted that we haven’t had an actually protest about it yet.

Do you know which issue I mean? No? Here’s a hint:

It’s a contamination of epic proportions and it’s affecting every decision we make and how we show up in the world to each other.

Still not getting it? 

I’m not surprised considering it’s been insidiously worming it’s way into our physical systems and social structures for some time now. To the point where most people don’t even know it’s a problem anymore. Practically everyone over the age of 18 is literally infected. And our youth are conditioned to think this is “normal health”.

It’s a dis-ease of adulthood. Or rather the lack of adulthood.

Put simply, we grownups are no longer allowed to be grownups and it’s poisoning us from the inside out.

​I was an essential worker. At least, for several weeks, at the beginning of the pandemic. Just before the mask mandate came down, after losing everything I had built up for my own business, I found a job at the local CVS up the street. Stores like CVS remained open, supposedly complying with strict levels of cleanliness (which translated to a dirty store and occasionally spraying fumes of lysol at the register). And my job was deemed “necessary” - by me because I had just lost everything. By society because no matter what, people need toilet paper.

If we could get it, that is. The world was having a run on toilet paper even though COVID was not a stomach virus.

It was not an ideal position. Within a day of being hired, multiple “supervisors” were texting my personal number offering to “walk me” to work since they all knew where I lived up the street. Apparently, it was “okay” for them to take down the personal details of a “hot girl” (their words not mine) since they were in positions of authority. It felt sketch to say the least. But I was desperate for work, and tried to shrug it off. I also refused their offers of walking me anywhere. Several tried to be insistent, so I generally ran out the door as fast as I could after my shift.