Tonight, President Obama will give his farewell address. I, like many, feel a sense of loss and despair. Loss at the notion that someone I felt could lead and inspire with hope, intelligence and grace is leaving the Oval Office. Despair at the reality that the President Elect is happy to be known as a guy that ‘that tells it like it is’ while his right hand gal questions why we take what he says “at face value.”
Say what?
Confusion and despair. Yep. That leads me to Heavy Boots.
According to Urban Dictionary, the phrase Heavy Boots is “from the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. The narrator uses this phrase frequently to describe something making him feel sad, bummed out or otherwise distressed.
For example: Seeing homeless people gives me heavy boots. Or, hearing that my best friend’s grandma had died gave me heavy boots.
I remember when I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close years ago, the term Heavy Boots struck me as something so very appropriate. Think about wearing a pair of heavy boots. They weigh you down, they don’t allow you to move forward. They make you feel stuck.
That’s how I feel when I think about Trump. That’s how I feel when I hear friends support him. I don’t understand. I want to understand. I want the nation to thrive under his presidency. I just can’t see it happening. Who tweets every. Single. Time. Someone disagrees with them? WHO? Oh, the President Elect, that’s who.
He behaves in a reactionary way. Not careful, not measured, not with intelligence. He talks off the cuff, ‘tells it like it is,’ which let’s face it – some of us do sometimes. And then we feel bad because usually when we react and speak (or TWEET) without thinking vs. thinking before speaking, we say things that are inappropriate, inaccurate and quite frankly, mean.
This gives me Heavy Boots. Our soon to be President, the leader of our country, the most powerful man in the world behaves in a reactionary manner regarding the smallest of things? What will happen with the largest of things? It’s too much for me to digest most days. It makes me feel stuck. I shake my head and don’t quite know how to progress. Hence, Heavy Boots.
I will watch Obama with Heavy Boots tonight because the uncertainty a Trump presidency brings with it astounds me. I will watch with Heavy Boots as we say goodbye to a leader I respect.
I will miss him. I will miss his leadership. I will miss the feeling of security I have knowing he is in office. But. But. I will do my best to watch our President say goodbye tonight with awe and wonder and some hope, because after all, that’s what Barack Obama has taught me to do.
Will you be watching the President’s Farewell Address tonight? Let me know in the comments below?
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