It’s a struggle to talk about this – in 2020 it’s a struggle to talk about feeling struggled because the actual police may be en route to being defunded but the woke police are busy issuing tickets and assaulting people for minor infractions.

It’s been a very long 3 months. I’ve felt like I’m under a microscope. Judged for every move on social media by someone in the burbs or from those that fled to vacation homes when the going got tough.

I’m now at my breaking point so…. hey?

Pull a chair – I’m by the red wine glass half way left of center. No, not that far left. Real left, but I’m too big for the kids table.

“I’m Egan Orion, Obama, Biden, maybe Warren but Bernie? oh.. yeah, I’m not Bernie left but I respect his idealism” she said.

I sit here from my office, my gym, my home, my 700 square foot solitary confinement cell looking out at my lovely parking lot view. The one now pulsing with mental breakdowns and discarded heroin rigs. Fuck me I’m tired. Every inch of green space in my neighborhood is now an encampment. The meth family Robinson rolled in and is real busy at 3am constructing dwellings 20 feet up in the trees out of the garbage they pulled from my dumpster. Meanwhile there are riots and fires, gunshots and flash bombs. Kids from the far, far, far burbs rolling out just to say they were here. They’re not activists. They’re looking for drama. Antagonize the police til the bombs drop- fuck yeah the rush is fun. Get it. Don’t forget to stream it on Twitter though or it doesn’t count!

It all just burns. Starbucks always tasted burnt anyway so whateves. The tanks roll by the meth encampment, aggressively defending .. something? I guess the East precinct still. The one that had its door cemented and lit ablaze two nights ago while occupied. That’s a federal attempted murder charge on an officer now. Smooth move. Did you not know every inch of this neighborhood is blanketed in cameras?

The neighbors that were once active with the BLM occupation are watching fires burn against their residential buildings and now they’re getting angry. The neighborhood support is gone and the republicans are collecting moderates. It’s moved so far from George Floyd. We’ve reached anarchy for the sake of anarchy. Brought to you by entitled white “woke” suburbanites. Can I say that? In my personal experience from living in the actual Seattle front line, I feel like I can. Judge me from your cul-de-sac.

I realize the longer this lasts the better trumps chance of reelection gets. The more likely it is the remaining small biz stop holdin’ and start folden’. We’re already down more than I like to acknowledge. We’ll come back out of c19 to a corporate landscape. Amazon can afford the riot insurance premiums. The small locally owned businesses… the ones already closed from covid? They can’t afford to burn again. Those are the businesses that make this neighborhood everything I love. It hurts to watch it all dissipate.

Did I mention I live in one of the most expensive urban zip codes in the country? Sure, parts of SF and NYC got us beat but otherwise the hill is cash money dollar bills. I spend more than the average yearly American salary on rent in a 100 year old building without amenities or a parking spot but this area is my home. Oh and yeah, I hustled my way into tech to stay here. I’m lucky as fuck to be in a industry that affords me a relatively comfortable urban lifestyle and I know it. However It’s not privilege. I didn’t finish my college degree, I just worked hard at adapting and learning. Big admit.

It took a zoom meeting with a colleague across the country to realize how damn shell shocked I am and how I’ve been too fearful to speak. She’s in engineering- it’s the one mindset I can’t crack. Our job roles never match personality spectrums and I always end up feeling like an annoying puppy trying to get a head scratch. “Look at me! I’m friendly and nice! People like me! How can I help? I’m good at smiling!”

…. engineers give no fucks.

She’s in a small town somewhere in the se seaboard but she pointedly asked me if I felt safe. Just like that. “Do you feel safe” it’s perfectly awkward engineer phrasing. Bold move. Nobody has asked me that.

Over the last 3 months people like me have lived in unrest. From the hill to the pearl. God damn Portland. Y’all ok? West LA, Philliy, Chicago, Richmond, Minneapolis, Atlanta. All the way to the Mars cheese castle town in wtf nowhere Wisconsin. Oh yeah – not you San Francisco. You’ve officially achieved “#2bougie2riot” However the 2020 powers that be just lit you on fire for funsies anyway. Don’t forget your roots.

Many of the people still left in the liberal leaning urban centers don’t have the economical means to gtfo. A lot of my neighbors are already gone. The buildings around the east precinct are just empty walls. Real estate on the hill is a bargain. For once.

I’m still here. I work for a company that has proved its usefulness during quarantine. Financially I could go. Mentally I can’t process it well enough to make that kind of decision. I’m just shell shocked and kinda lost.

Im still here. I’ve not been allowed to say how hard it’s been. I don’t want to bring my white plight to the discussion. Yes, I’m SO aware that Black people are not used to feeling safe, ever. It’s fucked up. It’s not fair. It needs to change. I commit to progressing towards change and educating myself beyond what the whitewashed textbooks preached. However I’m not going to sit here and virtue post to social media non-stop like that changes anything.

I’ve been unable to express how difficult it’s been to live on Capitol Hill during this time out of fear I’d be judged for worrying about my living situation as a white American woman. Maybe if I toss in “single mom who just finished a year+ of stage 3 cancer treatment” Id be validated. However that’s playing a card and I’m not into that. Next.

I opted to stay. This is my home. I’m anxious living in the unrest. No. I’m not really ok. My neighborhood is a madhouse. If you do not live here or in a similar space you can’t relate. You have no room to armchair activist me from Facebook while sitting in your quiet neighborhood lecturing me that my feelings are wrong or remotely based in racism.

I said it. Cancel culture me. ✌🏻