I grind my teeth a lot these days. It’s a new habit.

About the only times I don’t do it are when I’m eating or sleeping, and I’m not totally sure about the sleeping.

I think it’s rooted in anxiety.

I’m just really at a loss for what to say, anymore, people. That’s why it takes me so long to write anything these days; I’m just stupefied by what I’ve seen these last few months.

In my 62 years of existence on this planet, I have never seen my country in as sorry a shape as it’s in now.

Whether it’s climate change, COVID vaccines, election results or America’s racist history, there are lots of folks who are so deliberately ignorant of facts (and so in your face about it), and so blindly accepting of the most outlandish fiction ever created, it could make my head explode.

And I don’t know what to do about ‘em. They’re dug in. They will not listen.

That’s maddening. Heartbreaking. Even dangerous.

And that last part really scares me. It gives me nightmares.

The only bright side I can see is, they’re in the minority. Reason and common sense, along with compassion for others, can still be found in this country in great supply, fortunately.

But not a day goes by that doesn’t give me a reason to grind my teeth. At the brazenness, at the endless lying, at the defiant middle finger being directed at our democracy.

Folks, America is being tested as it hasn’t in a very long time, and it will be up to us to answer this challenge, in whatever way we can. The stakes are just too high.

What can you do? What can I do? It’s time to decide, and to act.

I just hope my teeth don’t get ground all the way down to the gums.