This year is out of control. And the hits just keep coming.

Teaching in a pandemic is no joke. Being a Democrat in the South in an election year is no joke. Staying optimistic in the midst of unfiltered negativity and knee-jerk reactionaries is no joke. Unmuffled jeeps waving Trump flags and wearing MAGA hats stealing our Biden sign on Halloween night is no joke. Sweet-faced, golden haired, eleven-year-old girls coming into my yard in broad daylight to steal our sign — proclaiming it illegal, but willing to do it anyways (until I stop them and tell them to move along) — is no joke.

What is this world coming to? What is wrong with people? With the universe? With me?

I feel like no matter what I do, nothing is in my control anymore. Like I’m living on a bumper car track — strapped in and tethered to some chaotic electric current of negativity and mayhem. Like an All-State commercial has taken over my life. My world.

Sometimes I feel slightly in control. I can feel the tug of the steering column on the rubber beneath me as I try valiantly to drive my life and stay healthy and in good humor. And it begrudgingly responds to my demands — until some flying obstacle slams into me and sets me spinning inside this cosmic carny ride.

Well, I’m tired of this wild ride.

I’m tired of the gleeful abandonment of humanity I see on a daily basis. I’m tired of being accosted by distorted, funhouse mirror versions of values.

I want kindness and order again — not “law and order” makeshift militias raiding my property on Halloween night while my boys and I are snuggled up in our pajamas watching “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.” Robbing our boys of sweet memories and replacing them with nightmares of cult followings and cruelty. Robbing my husband and me of our faith in this country’s democracy and the processes it founded so long ago.

My heart and my country have been flung off course from all directions.

Nothing feels normal anymore. Nothing feels right. Everybody seems to have an accelerator, but no brakes. An uncanny ability to aim for one another with a gleam in our eye and maniacal laugh on our lips. I do my best to stay out of the way of barreling bullies intent on careening me off course, but it is getting harder and harder to do.

Because I’m leashed to this bumper car demolition derby of a year and I despise everything about it.

I’m tired. I am a strong, fierce female fighting the good fight, but boy, am I tired.

Somebody bring back compassion and calm. Somebody cut the negative energy encircling and snaring us all. How about a whole lot of somebodies… Let’s cut this negative energy at its source and bring back the compassion and calm of America again.