(Please excuse any mistakes and incoherent thoughts as I only had 15 minutes for this text.)
To say that I have been feeling overwhelmed in the past days (or has it been weeks) is a massive understatement. Having sleepless nights with various members of the family feeling under the weather is a challenge enough. Throw in a need to organise a toddler birthday party, burst pipe on a hot water boiler, a war 400km from the homeland’s border, devastating floods a few suburbs away, your partner being in the middle of the most challenging time at work, taking tough decisions regarding the course of your family’s life and all you want is to curl into a fetus position and cry. I never thought I would be daydreaming about simple things like having a whole night of sleep and a morning lie in. At this point in my life it would mean the world to me. I would finally be able to organise my thoughts that are flying around my head like mental crows on ecstasy.
What am I thinking about? Apart from “will I ever sleep again?” also about being more frustrated and angry with the world’s leaders, who again are taking those options that will benefit the richest, the middle class will pay for and cause suffering for the rest. Seeing the impotence to take action when it’s really needed.
When it comes to the floods here in Australia, all I can think about where is this army that just months ago has been beating up civilians for leaving their homes, forcing people into taking decisions they were unwilling to take? Why are they not helping when people are left stranded with no water supply, racing against the mould forever destroying their homes? Was all the money spent on covid relief? On the covid info line? On all the PCR tests that were for “free”? Maybe on the “free” vaccines. Perhaps it was the massive marketing campaign, or shipping coal to Czech Republic, who knows. Maybe it wasn’t even spent, the outcome is the same, they are unwilling to help now. Then there’s me, feeling guilty that with two little kids I can’t simply go and go through rubble and help myself. Oh yes, if you were thinking just months ago that all of this was done to benefit the vulnerable in the society you are noble but naive. It was all done just to polarise society and create fear. Fearful society is just that much easier to manipulate.
Then there’s the war in Ukraine. Something that was in the cards for nearly a decade, yet it was easier to ignore. Despite countless of evidence against one of the world’s most famous assassins, he still had no trouble getting a handshake from the leaders of the most powerful European leaders. The economic repercussions would be terrible, yes yes yes. Of course the economy. Now we are all acting surprised, states holding off taking stronger measures while civilians are fundraising like crazy, driving to the borders to bring all supplies, hosting refuges and truly increasing my belief in humanity because the solidarity has been so beautiful. I keep crying intermittently pretty much every time I see the devastating pictures of the war. I imagine the mothers putting their kids to sleep in a shelter somewhere, maybe trying to breastfeed un unconsolable baby and I cry even more. There’s nothing I can do. Nothing. Even thought I should only be thinking about the human suffering the war brings, I also think what it means for my family’s future. How much will our finances and our plans, that included a lot more freedom from the standard 40 hour work week, will pan out? We have also worked hard for this. Unfortunately we are exactly the middle class that will be paying for the 10% inflation in homeland. Should I count myself lucky because there are people who are suffering a lot more in the world today? Or should I be outraged because there are people again making unfathomable amounts of money from that human suffering?
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