I hate roller coasters. When I was\u00a0a child, we spent our summers in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. In the late afternoons,\u00a0we took a ten minute walk to an amusement park where we ate pizza, French fries
and cotton candy. We played the ring toss and we rode the bumper cars, the\u00a0Ferris wheel and the tilt-a whirl. I was really good at Skee-ball but I was\u00a0terrified of the roller coaster. Back then, they were comparatively tame. They\u00a0didn\u2019t flip upside down, they didn\u2019t have sheer drops and nobody lifted their\u00a0arms above their heads. But the cars went at breakneck speed and I didn\u2019t want\u00a0any part of it.<\/p>\n
One weekend, my father and I walked\u00a0to the pier. We rode the Ferris and had some cotton candy and when we got to\u00a0the roller coaster, my father asked for two tickets. I stopped him. \u201cI\u2019ll wait\u00a0here,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
He urged me to try it. \u201cDo it once\u00a0and if you don\u2019t like it, you never have to do it again. You might like it.\u201d I\u00a0knew I wouldn\u2019t, but no matter how much I protested, he insisted. \u201cI\u2019ll be\u00a0right beside you,\u201d he said. I didn\u2019t know why that would make any difference. My
legs felt numb as we got into the car, pulled up the safety bar and started\u00a0moving upward in a series of long slow chugs. When we reached the top, the car picked\u00a0up speed and began to fly around the corners. It felt like I was about to fall\u00a0off the tracks every time we got to a corner and I lost it. I cried and\u00a0screamed and when it was over, I rushed through the park and onto the sidewalk.<\/p>\n
The political roller coaster we\u2019re\u00a0on now is just as hard to bear. On a large scale, it feels like a battle\u00a0between the light and the darkness and we are being constantly challenged. I like\u00a0to call it a spiritual trial. No matter what\u2019s going on, the pundits search for\u00a0bad news and report it with zeal. It reminds me of an Eagles song lyric by Don
Henley:<\/p>\n
I make my living off the evening\u00a0news.<\/p>\n
Just give me somethin\u2019, somethin\u2019\u00a0I can use.<\/p>\n
People love it when you lose,<\/p>\n
They love dirty laundry.<\/p>\n
The TV hosts are trying to scare us\u00a0and they\u2019re doing a damn good job of it. I feel like a leaf getting battered by\u00a0a storm as the polls edge up and down. When I hear bad news, I get a sinking\u00a0feeling in my stomach like I\u2019m careening downhill at record speed, landing in
the sewer and trying to get unstuck. When I hear good news, I feel peaceful for\u00a0a moment \u2013 until some terrified friend calls to tell me something that sets me\u00a0back on the roller coaster. I go up. I go down, I go round and round, many\u00a0times a day.<\/p>\n
If this is happening to me, I bet\u00a0it\u2019s happening to you, too. So what do we do when we feel like we\u2019re dying several\u00a0times a day? Writing this blog helps me, even though I\u2019m encouraging people to\u00a0do things I have trouble doing. We all need to remind each other to stop suffering\u00a0as we approach the end of a tough journey. We need to remember that we are not\u00a0alone and its perfectly legitimate and helpful to put out a good word, even if we\u2019re\u00a0having trouble hanging on to it ourselves. We are all fellow travelers. We can lift\u00a0up someone else and when we go down the spiral, they can step in and lift us up.\u00a0It\u2019s important not to beat ourselves up for being frightened. Nobody can holdcit together all the time.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m fortunate to have a friend who\u2019s not a Pollyanna but he manages to keep a good attitude. I call him when I\u2019m\u00a0swinging back and forth and he reminds me to envision what I want instead of\u00a0what I don\u2019t want. My political guru, Simon Rosenberg, asks us to stop worrying.
\u201cThat\u2019s no way to win an election,\u201d he says. Not an easy thing to do. When I\u00a0pick up the remote, I feel a magnetic pull to go to MSNBC and check on the news, even though the ongoing reality show often makes me feel desperate. As I write\u00a0these words, I\u2019m still vacillating, but I\u2019ve promised myself to ignore the pundits.<\/p>\n
Michelle Obama said, \u201cDo something.\u201d If that makes you uncomfortable, remember that if you haven\u2019t written\u00a0postcards, made phone calls or gone door to door, that\u2019s okay. It\u2019s enough to
cheer each other on, to inspire friends and family to vote and envision what we\u00a0want, not what we don\u2019t want. I don\u2019t know about you but I want a deeply\u00a0intelligent, fearless, joyful woman with positive energy and an unswerving commitment\u00a0to run our country and make things better.<\/p>\n
Fear is what the other side is dishing\u00a0out. I do my best to fight it. It\u2019s an exhausting proposition. I talk myself down\u00a0by saying, \u201cI have a really good life, I worked hard for it and I refuse to let\u00a0anyone ruin it.\u201d I remind myself to refuse to let the pain win. I call on my intelligence
and my will to imagine the best, not the worst. Both of these frames of mind\u00a0are available. Which one feels better and smarter? I remember my mother saying,\u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t get excited. You might get disappointed.\u201d I remind myself that disappointment\u00a0is not a terminal illness. If the worst happens, we\u2019ll deal with it, but the\u00a0odds are pointing in a different direction so lets get on the bandwagon. As we embark\u00a0on the last leg of this gargantuan struggle, let\u2019s stay focused on winning, not\u00a0losing. Let\u2019s remember we are not the only one suffering and fighting to stay\u00a0on track. Let\u2019s join each other in a collective attempt to envision what we want\u00a0and do everything we can to get it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I hate roller coasters. When I was\u00a0a child, we spent our summers in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. In the late afternoons,\u00a0we took a ten minute walk to an amusement park where we ate pizza, French friesand cotton candy. We played the ring toss and we rode the bumper cars, the\u00a0Ferris wheel and the tilt-a whirl. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2563,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2562\/revisions\/2563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}