(sequel to The Very Hungry Post Menopausal Caterpillar)
Once there was a caterpillar who was very angry.
She hadn't always been angry, but four years of Trump Republican fuckery had taken its toll.
She was grateful to be awakened to action after too many years of complacency, of course, but being even a bit more woke now, she was so, so angry.
So, the first year, she went to the Women's March, and she marched and sang and held her sign and she was buoyed and heartened by the sight of the protests around the world. She came home from the march exhilarated and she thrilled to the photos of world-wide resistance and solidarity.
But she was still angry.
The next year, she ranted on Facebook about selling off national parks and bringing prayer back to public schools and closing our borders to immigrants and putting babies in cages. She sent emails and letters to everyone, demanding justice for those most vulnerable.
But she was still angry.
The next year, she joined dozens of organizations and sent a shitload of money to RAICES and ACLU and Planned Parenthood. She posted a weekly activism checklist on FB so people could see how they could help fight the damage being done to democracy and decency.
But she was still angry.
So she organized post card writing parties and attended protests and even made daily phone calls to legislators - which was totally out of her comfort zone - but she persisted. She also quietly unfriended her 17 Trump-supporting FB friends.
But she was still angry.
Leading up to the presidential election, she gave even more money to Democratic candidates, wrote more postcards to voters, made new like-minded FB friends who became community, and got the CALM app on her phone.
But she was not only still angry, she was also a little panicky about the future. She renewed her prescriptions for Xanax and Prozac.
When the pandemic came and Trump Republican fuckery turned the virus into political weaponry and, for a while, eclipsed all the other devastating clusterfucks the Republicans had created, her anger became volcanic. She felt as if she was going to burst.
She went into her cocoon to socially distance and isolate and order groceries from Instacart. All throughout the spring, summer, autumn and winter, she isolated at home. She thought about learning to bake bread, to raise a kitchen counter-full of sourdough babies in matching Ball jars but it was so trendy already and she liked to think that she was all about subverting the dominant paradigm.
Her cocoon was beginning to feel a little bit suffocating. She knew there was great transformation in the future, she knew that meaningful change takes time, she knew that there was much work still to be done, but it was taking so fucking long.
So fucking long.
And then, on New Year's Eve, heralding 2021 when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would take the wheel (albeit after Trump fuckery had stripped the car and sold it for parts to their mofo cronies), The Very Angry Caterpillar took stock of the past four years.
They had sucked.
She was one of the fortunate, privileged ones who, so far, had made it through unscathed. She had paid work, she had a home, a loving family, a community and health insurance. She had social security. She was able to help others.
She knew that she could never ever ever again become complacent the way she had during the Obama years. She realized that Trump might be leaving the White House, but racism, classism, homophobia, greed, cruelty and fascism weren't going anywhere.
And maybe, just maybe, staying angry wasn't such a bad thing. If it keeps her involved.
One day, after she will get the vaccine, she will emerge from her cocoon and she will be a beautiful new...well, she'll still be a caterpillar.
And an angry one.
And she will get back to work.
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