I've been thinking a lot about grief lately.

Everyone is familiar with the stages of grief by now. But listen: the thing that's happening to us right now, the thing that we're feeling and going through on a national level? That's also the process of grief, and understanding that might be helpful to getting through it and out the other side.

Denial: But he can't do that, it's against the law!
Anger: What the fuck! He's a monster!
Bargaining: They'll realize this is stupid and reverse course, right? So many people are mad. Maybe the courts will step in and—
Depression: Welp. Looks like it's technofascism forever.

The firehose of bad news never stops, each new executive order or statement like a new symptom reported in an already terminal patient.

Recognizing that this is grief allows us to push forward to the final step: acceptance. Acceptance means internalizing that this is really happening and there is no weird trick, no last-minute save, no secret loophole that's going to turn the ship around and put us gently back to where we were on Jan. 19 of 2024. We are where we are. There’s no going back.

Again, more slowly:

This is happening.

We can't stop it from happening.

Things will never be the same again after this.

We've lost a way of life, an illusion of security. The thing we're mourning is a status quo which is gone and can never come back. Each day is filled with new things we never thought could be possible, things no reasonable person would dream of doing.

Acceptance doesn't mean sitting out the fight, though; part of facing this particular reality means trying to mitigate harm where and how you can. We are still building the future. And there is a future still ahead of us. It isn’t the one we wanted, it isn’t the one we grew up expecting, but it’s the one we’ve got. So how do we make the best of it?