Please don't make me take it to the streets

The first thing that I said after Trump won last fall was, “I’m not doing another march.”

… I did another march.

The second I tossed the idea of joining our local No Kings protest in the group chat, I regretted it. And was that because I was worried about violence? Or because I was just too upset about current events to let it bring me down further?

I hate that I suggested it to my friends because that meant I would be screwing up my Saturday. And boy do I hate when anything gets in the way of my little weekend traditions. You hate that you have to protest because the world got this bad? I hate that I had to shift my weekly vacuuming under the bed from Saturday to Sunday. 

Marching is a nuisance. Half of my Friday was spent fuming over what time it made sense to head to the march, whether I should bike or take the train, and where my group should meet up. Other people took the reins; I am soaked with decision fatigue by the end of the week. My dream date is not planning it.

When I was a teenager and was deep in my obsession with the 1960s, I wanted nothing more than to be “part of a movement.” What did I even think that meant?? I mean, I actually purchased Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book from Barnes & Noble, lmaooo there was no way I would be good at counterculture. I was 14 when 9/11 happened and the country still understood the concept of unity, which in retrospect seems unimaginably pastoral now. I think I just wanted some action.

Here is the thing about being young: You have so much excess energy that the very idea of takin’ it to the streets sounds invigorating. Protests belong to the young! Even during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, my immediate gut reaction was: How do so many people have time off work?

But on Saturday, I looked around and saw all ages present: The young and invigorated were certainly there, but also those of us who had to occasionally do a little squat so that our knees wouldn’t ache too much. I saw a sign that said “It’s so bad that even the introverts are here.” It’s so bad that even those of us with precious little free time are grumbling our way through the crowd. I’m not talking about "activism fatigue" or "social justice burnout," it’s just basic life exhaustion.

The march didn’t energize me. I didn’t find some poetry in it as I probably once would have. It just felt like one more obligation, like going to the doctor’s: I don’t want to do it, but I know that I have to (and it’ll somehow be more bad news and cost money!). No one tells you that democracy is just a series of little responsibilities. Freedom is great but you also have to research judges sometimes and that’s a drag. 

Of course the upside to this is that I got to hang out with my friends — the doctor’s office never lets me bring friends! (Could you imagine? I’m trying to clear up my eczema and one of my idiot pals is asking if the dermatologist has a favorite type of pimple.) We biked through town after the march and yakked while we wove through the city. We hung out with our dogs on a patio and drank beer. We obviously saved our great nation.

My friend Abbie told me that some dude went viral on TikTok because he joined the L.A. protests seemingly on his way home from work in his business casuals. (I can’t link to this video, I don’t have TikTok. OLD.) We both liked the idea of pop-in protesting. Like sometimes you gotta just wedge it in between groceries and the gym. While this obviously isn’t the level of disruption that other people are seeing in their lives right now, it’s natural to cling to some semblance of normalcy to keep functioning. There’s a march coming your way? You duck in for a bit, add it to your errands. 

As much as I hated it, I’m glad I did it. I didn’t make any signs (I hate carrying stuff) and I don’t have any protest-themed apparel — although I loved thinking about how one woman very thoughtfully chose to wear her Rage Against the Machine t-shirt. Going to the march gave me the same feeling of mild accomplishment that you get when you cross something simple off of your to-do list. Like wow, look at me: I called the gas company. 

I wish more people understood that many of us are out there begrudgingly. I don’t feel like defending my rights and others’! Yet here we are. My boyfriend and I were chatting with a couple of strangers at a street fest yesterday, and the woman mentioned she had gone to the celebration for Pope Leo at the White Sox stadium on Saturday. I told her I’d heard about that, and how I had reflected — on my way home from the march — on how many activities a Chicagoan could choose from that day: art fairs, baseball games, brunch. When she heard I’d gone to the rally, I watched her face set into something harder. “I just don’t think people should get violent,” she said. I almost laughed in her face: If only she knew how pissed I was to miss my Saturday morning yoga class. I think few of us were hankering for a showdown. We just clapped when a speaker said something zippy (if we could hear them at all) and then inched forward at an aggravatingly slow pace. It was all fine. We were just glad the weather cooperated.

I’ll probably have to keep doing this shit throughout the summer, because I unfortunately do not think we solved democracy on Saturday. If nothing else, I do think it was an absolute thrill to know that, across the country, people spent Trump’s birthday holding signs of him portrayed as a turd or that read “Oligargle my balls.” This is what democracy looks like!

(Goes to bed at 9 p.m.)