Joy as an act of Resistance

I need more joy.  I need more resistance.  Maybe a little more sleep too.

The Goblet of Fire

I'm 35 and reading the Harry Potter series for the first time.  I also just worked my first 12 hour shift off orientation in the psych ED.  I'm tired, but not too tired to try and finish the fourth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  I loved the first three books, they were fun, The Goblet of Fire is breaking my heart.  The kids at the border locked in detention centers are also breaking my heart, and the father crying because he's so stressed out and doesn't know how to care for his son experiencing his first psychotic break is breaking my heart.  Life can be fucking tough.  I don't have a vault in Gringots and I don't have a magic wand, but sometimes I feel as lucky as Harry when I think about the life cards I've been dealt.  Daily life is really bad for a lot of people.  Some days I can compartmentalize that painful realization away and other days the stark realities outside my carefully curated bubble threaten to spill forth like a broken dam.

Anyway, as Albus Dumbledore said in his year end "Leaving Speech" at Hogwarts after the death of Cedric Diggory, "In light of Lord Voldemort's Return, we are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.  Lord Voldemort's gift for spreading discord and enmity is great.  We can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust.  Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open."  (Sub Lord Voldemort, for Donald J Trump)

We all want and deserve to feel loved and safe and valid.  If you can't get down with that, if you want to make the simple act of living more difficult for others, you can fuck right off.  I sincerely hope that something falls out of the sky and lands on you.  That goes for the Donald Trumps and the major micro-aggressors of the world that prey on the vulnerabilities of others.