My Two Cents

The other night I was on facebook. I began to leave to go look at another site, but as the new page loaded, I did a total double take. Had I just seen what I thought I saw? I pressed "back", and sure enough, "Bin Laden is dead". My friend Elaine had posted the news.

Immediately, I felt.........


I am not sure I want to say.


I am not sure I want to share my current feelings on the matter because there are a lot of judgmental comments floating around. I have found that different people are reacting in different ways to the news. My frustration is that some people are seeing this event in our history as yet one more opportunity to judge one another.

There are valid points coming from both sides of the issue, but I just want to underscore the fact that most of what we are experiencing is so much emotion, and so little reason. Since we can't actually do a whole lot about the situation, all we can do is feel things about it. But to say that one's person's feelings is right or wrong is to attack their character. Feelings are an intrinsic part of who we are--they are ingrained, and they are unstoppable.

Should I be happy? Should I be sad? Should I be relieved? Should I be numb? For now, I am trying to remain as neutral as I can because I am afraid. I am afraid of what people will think of me if I disclose how I feel about the whole thing. I am afraid that others will think my feelings are not the feelings I should be experiencing. And that is what I feel is more messed up than any other part of the issue. I definitely have opinions, but thanks to certain individuals I mostly keep them to myself (I had to learn to be mostly discrete the hard way when I voted for Obama).

I feel the people of our country are in constant defense-mode. Not against terrorists, but against each other. I am so tired of hearing about Republican vs. Democrat, Obama vs. Bush--but at the same time, I can't look away. It's like watching a schoolyard fight--it's fascinating and horrifying at the same time. I don't want to get beaten up, so I just stand there on the sidelines, trying to decide what I should do. In the meantime, I feel the very infrastructure that this country is built on is crumbling, and all anyone wants to do is argue about who punched the first hole in the wall.