I was 10 once, too

Saturday afternoon I Zoomed with my shrink. As the hour came to a close, I confessed that I can't stop worrying about Election Day. What if America re-elects that divisive, incompetent bully who indulges in name calling and can't resist conspiracy theories? (The latest: front line doctors "blame" deaths on the corona virus to make money.) What would that say about us as a nation? It makes my heart hurt.

My doc told me I'm not alone. She mentioned that everyone she spoke  to this past week has expressed similar concerns about our President. Everyone. Whether she saw them professionally or socially. Even a 10-year-old girl.

"How could a man who lies and lets people die become President?" she asked, starting to cry.

I wanted to know how my shrink addressed this.

My doctor told her that this is not her responsibility. Her observations may not be wrong, but it is not up to her to worry about it or fix it. There are adults in her life who love her, and they will take care of her.

I happen to know for a fact those words didn't help that girl. 

I was 10 in 1968. I was playing Barbies on the living room coffee table, a TV special about the Beach Boys in the background, when a "special bulletin" came on. Dr. Martin Luther King had been shot. While doing nothing more than standing on a balcony. Chicago erupted in riots.

I was very moved by Bobby Kennedy, addressing the people of Indianapolis the night Dr. King was killed. He was so wise, so sensitive that there were no riots in nearby Indianapolis.

A quick nap w/Freckles

Bobby was running for President, and I saw him on TV and in the paper all the time. He was always surrounded -- by adults, kids, and Freckles the dog. I was very grateful that a man like this would soon be President. He clearly knows what to do: about assassinations and riots and the bloody Vietnam War. We would be OK.

Then just two months later, he was murdered. I saw it all on TV. Followed by the Democratic Convention here in Chicago ... and more riots, and more body bags from Vietnam.

I cried a lot. Adults cannot take care of kids because adults let stuff like this happen.

1968 marked me. I carry it with me every day, like the vaccination scar on my left arm. Sometimes it comforts me. If this country can get through a year of assassinations, riots and war, we can get through this.

It also made me a Democrat ... a liberal ... a progressive. The best part of me still sees the world like I did then. I still want us to be, as Bobby said in the last speech he ever gave, "a great country, an unselfish country, a compassionate country." Given a choice between a good and decent leader but a sluggish economy, or a bully and a bullish market, I'll proudly take the hit to my wallet every time.

I ended the session Saturday in tears myself. For that little girl my shrink mentioned, and for 10-year-old me. Because now I'm an adult. Now the world is my responsibility. And I don't know how I'll face living in a country that has seen Donald Trump for what he is and still re-elected him.