Disappointment Island

 Dear you,

News reports inform me my magical thinking about Moderna invincibility is delusional.  My terrible reactions after the vax only bought me six months of safety.  Later, I have to get a booster.  Honestly, I am considering just giving up on this shot thing and rolling the dice.  I really don’t want to be that sick again.  But I know sick is better than dead.  This and then the updates on masks:  probably another six months of face coverings at best.  Very disappointing.

Some better news? Our troops are coming home from Afghanistan.  After twenty years, they return.  Many of these young men and women were not even born when 9/11 happened, the catalyst for our invasion to pursue the perpetrators, Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden.  The latter are neutralized and dead, but the Taliban remains.  This is not good news for Afghani women, gays, intellectuals, artists, or even pets.  The Taliban still rules.  Very disappointing.

Then, the executions of American citizens, specifically Black citizens, by members of law enforcement.  Regularly.  This has become regular.  Disappointing?  No.  Infuriating, heartbreaking, soul-killing, yes. We wait for justice, logical verdicts, we wait, but prepare for disappointment.

I look out my west window on a rainy afternoon and see disappointed visitors strolling about, bored.  They came here for sun, fun, a day at the beach.  I feel for them, especially the little ones, but imagining a consistently sunny and warm Panhandle of Florida is truly delusional.  Check the map.  We are a long way from the tropics.  Very disappointing.

They are disappointed.  I am disappointed.  We are disappointed.

To break my fixation on disappointment, I Google “good news” and check out a site called goodnewsnetwork.org.  Some headlines:

Endangered Trout May Soon Return to Los Angeles

They Found A Baby on the Subway – Now He’s Their Adopted Son

Man Mailed Himself Home in a Box from Australia – Now He’s Looking for the Pals Who Helped Him

Futuristic Green Fabric That Works Like a Smartphone Unveiled by Scientists

Woman Uses Lockdown to Teach Her Clever Dog Math and Colors with Homemade Flashcards

No, this is not a satirical news site.  It featured some interesting and uplifting stories, more substantive than the above.  But I left the site even more disappointed because:

I don’t understand why a trout would want to live in LA.

I don’t trust “finders keepers” adoptions.

I don’t even want to know this mail-myself-home man’s story.

I don’t need another version of the ubiquitous, rule-our-lives Smartphones.

I don’t think this woman should own a dog.  Forced math instruction is abusive.

Those don’ts are a product of a currently disappointed mind programmed by inflated expectations.  I have got to get my head in line with empirical reality.  Moderna won’t save me; the Talibans of this world won’t go away; people with power are not always good.  Got it.

But I can dream, can’t I?  Reality-infused dreams maybe? Besides, the truth is Moderna probably will save me (at least from Covid), eventually the Talibans of this world end up tripping over their own dicks, and most/many people with power are very, very, very good.  Got that!

That is sustainable magical thinking, disappointments be damned.  

XO

Joyce

PS – Did you know there is a place named Disappointment Island?  It’s in the Auckland Islands, New Zealand.  Uninhabited, but home to lots of albatrosses.  Those creatures are NOT disappointed; they are safe, far away from human interference and the abusive flashcard lady.