I spent the whole weekend obsessing about the US election. Obsessing. Couldn't stop thinking about it. I was having emotional reactions that were way out of proportion to any actual events. And I felt terrible. By yesterday afternoon I was in the throes of a migraine, making good on my threat that if I didn't stop thinking about this, my head was going to explode.A wise therapist once told a friend of my husband's (yes, I'm getting this third hand) that whenever our emotional reaction to something (or someone) is above a seven on a scale of one to ten, the reaction is not really about that thing (or person) at all. When I react strongly, it's about me, about something that happened in my past.
So, I know that what's going on isn't really about the mental love triangle I've got going between Hillary Clinton (whose ghost remains in the election), Barack Obama and John McCain. It's not about politics or what's best for this country. It's about me. But to get at what it is, I'm going to have to go back in time: to the last election, to my abortion, to my husband's last relapse, to how in the national drama is reflecting my personal drama back at me. And since working my shit out is what I created this space for, I'm going to use it. So, there will be politics in posts over the next few days, but they won't be about politics.
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