I Feel Trump's Pain

By the time you get to my age which is the same age as Donald Trump and three years younger than Joe Biden (who looks ten years older than I), there are many things going awry in the container we live in, which we call "the body." My issues are so numerous I won't bore you with a list, but one of the least visible and worst things I deal with is called "hyper-empathy." In a nutshell, it means that I experience other people’s feelings so much that I actually live it, making me susceptible to feelings of depression or hopelessness that have little to do with my own life.

For example, this morning I read an article online about three teenagers who were on a family holiday in Rhodes, Greece. Two brothers ages 13 and 15 and their 15-year-old cousin, a beautiful girl, went parasailing together. Through some mishap (now under investigation) the rope attaching their parachute to the boat towing them over the sea snapped and all three fell to the rocks below. The girl and her younger cousin died instantly while the older boy remains in critical condition in a hospital.

Reading this story over a delicious breakfast in my beautiful home in idyllic Maine, my adorable cat sleeping peacefully nearby and a lovely fire in the cast-iron stove warming the room, I burst into tears and felt sick. I imagined how the parents felt upon hearing the news, and it was simply too hard to bear. It reminded me of when my own son, about 12 at the time, went parasailing with my husband on a trip to Florida years ago. At the time I was so upset about it I had to leave the area and return to my hotel room; I simply couldn't watch them, fearing the worst. Also, my son was not happy about it and the look on his face as he was being lifted into the sky is still burned in my memory.

So in a way this news story happened to me, back then. Only it didn't. Yes, I'm sick in the head. My dear friend with cancer who is going through chemo right now, another friend whose daughter is hospitalized for bipolar disorder, my sister who lives in a nursing home and can't remember which is her bad ear so talking on the phone is a pain in the ass until she figures it out: all of these people become me, or I become them. No wonder I am always bummed out!

So the arrows constantly being shot at Donald Trump hit me. The morbidly obese people with rolls of fat seen stuffing themselves with unhealthy foods make me sad out of proportion. The pleas for help for abused animals flooding my mailbox, and the starving children in Africa, and the kids on the Smile Train with no upper lips..... it's a crap shoot every time I pick up the newspaper, turn on the TV, look at my phone or leave my home. So please, if you see me sometime, tell me something happy.