This past weekend finally broke me of my news obsession; it’s taken years — literally, I’ve been like this since the one-two punch of the 2016 US election and the Brexit referendum — but it was another one-two punch that finally put paid to the fire in my eyes for “keeping up to date.”
As soon as news broke that the Mueller Report had been handed into the Department of Justice, I was done. I won’t be cynical and claim that I knew nothing would come of it, because I didn’t; I fully expected obstruction to be identified and a decision to be that a sitting President couldn’t be indicted, I admit. But the breathless rush to “explain” what was utterly unknown for two days, and now only partly unknown, finished me.
(Yes, I think something is hinky about Barr’s summary, too, but I also think something is hinky about a two year investigation ending with, “Eh, I dunno,” and a shrug, essentially. But what does that matter?)
This came after my growing sadness over everything Brexit, which breaks my heart with each new maddening story of a political process riddled with ineptitude, driving an entire country ever closer to utter disaster, so, so slowly. I can’t verbalize what it actually feels like, to be honest; it’s upsetting in a way that feels at once intensely personal and also at a remove, because I’ve not lived in the UK for close to two decades at this point. I just find myself hoping for the best and wanting to look away.
This impulse, this Okay, I’m done for awhile, feels like it’s probably healthy — disconnecting as self-care, just for a short time. I’ll come back, I know I will, but for now, it only seems sensible to look away from a feed that only offers Bad News day after day after day.