Breaking Point

How close are we?

You know those annoying buggers that pop up to screw up our vision, called “floaters?”

My eyes are filled with them right now. I keep blinking but they won’t go away. Instead, they seem to be multiplying, like they’re deliberately fucking with me. They make my head hurt.

I have floaters in my brain, too but these have more substance. They’re completely unlike the wispy filaments that dance through my vision.

Black men dying. Buildings burning. Cities crumbling. Politicians lying. Mothers crying out for their lost children. Those are the floaters in my brain. And, much like the ones messing with my vision, these are clouding my thinking.

Any sense of “normalcy” I once felt is now completely gone. If the pandemic hadn’t already completely eradicated what stands for “real life” than this latest atrocity, the taking of a black man’s life by white cops, has nearly sent me around the bend.

How about you? Are your feet still firmly rooted to the ground or are you spiraling off into Never Never Land?

The murder of George Floyd by men who were charged with “serving and protecting” ignored his continued pleas for mercy and instead, let him die in the street, his cheek pressed into the concrete.

A white man’s knee on a black man’s neck. If that isn’t fucked up, I don’t know what is.

We’re living in shit on shit.

As someone who has been color-blind my entire life, I risk sounding naive by asking, “Why? Why does it matter what color a person’s skin is?”

Why do white Neanderthals continue to harass and maim and murder people of color? What happened to human decency? Does it even exist? Did it ever?

As I go through my day, doggedly, like a robot, I wonder, “Why bother?”

Why should I bother to write, or clean the house, or pay the bills or give a shit if our grass is cut or ten feet high — when the notion of a tomorrow or next week or next year seems irrelevant.

That’s because as a country, we are sinking so low and so fast that we may never climb out of the muck. Instead, we are embracing Armaggedon.

When I saw that protests had broken out in Chicago, my home town, I said, “Hell, yeah! Bring it on! Bring back the 60s!”

But we can’t even get that right. Certainly, as we’ve seen, many of the protests have been peaceful. Sane. Non-violent. But, there’s a certain segment of society who are using this tragedy to get free stuff! You know, like TVs and phones and whatever the hell else they can get their hands on in a full-on Lootingpalooza.

Busting into a Target isn’t going to cure this particular cancer, that has metastasized from coast to coast and city to city.

I get it though. People have come to their breaking point. Even the strongest individual will crack if pushed to their limit.

The people in the streets, in cities around the country, have broken down. The evidence is right in front of our eyes.

Which leads me to wonder, “What about the rest of us?” Those of us who sit in front of our TVs watching these horrors unfold by the hour.

Are we going to break? And if so, how will that manifest? Will we become abusive with a partner or worse, a child?

Will we drink ourselves into oblivion?

Will we rip off our masks, toss our hand sanitizer and say, “Fuck it?”

I’m drinking too much wine. I can tell you that. I’m going through it at an alarming rate. I’ve sworn off the hard stuff because I know that will do me in.

Does it help? Not as much as I’d like. But for now, I’m giving myself a pass.

How close are you to your breaking point? Or are you “steady as she/he goes?”

What happens to you on a bad day? A really bad day?

If you have young children, how do you talk to them about all this? Are they scared? Are you?

I pose these questions in the hope that we can help one another get through this nightmare. Go ahead. Shake me awake. I welcome it. Because I don’t want to break. Nor do you, I’m sure.

Come on. Reach out.

If you’re up for it, I would love to hear your thoughts on this. How you’re coping. If you’re coping. No pressure, but I’m going to tag a few people and would love for you to do the same. In no particular order: P.G. Barnett, Caroline de Braganza, Joe Luca, Chris Hedges, Timothy Key, Stephen Sovie, Marla Bishop, Jim Latham, Desiree Driesenaar, Gurpreet Dhariwal, Jan M Flynn, Kevin Buddaeus, Kim McKinney, and Rasheed Hooda.

Sherry McGuinn is a slightly-twisted, longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s manager is currently pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.

I hope you enjoyed this. If so, you might like the following stories, as well.

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