Rubbernecking

Inspirational song: Karn Evil 9 (Emerson, Lake, & Palmer)

I was alive when the Watergate hearings took place. My age was in single digits, and my ability to comprehend the magnitude of what was happening on a national and global scale was roughly nil. We lived on an air force base in Germany at the time it was happening, or maybe we were still living in a rental house in one of the little German towns near it. We didn't have a whole lot of television time back then. We had an eleven inch black and white television set, and our choices for viewing were Armed Forces Network or one of the few German broadcasts. I honestly do not remember witnessing a single moment of the hearings on TV, live or recorded, during the time they were proceeding.

I was a teenager when the Iran-Contra Affair was going on. I had a little more awareness of it as an international scandal, but I was far more concerned with my own affairs, as most teenagers are. A decade later, when the Clinton impeachment dominated the news, I had children of my own, no older than I was during Watergate. I was too busy to stay on top of it as it was happening, but eventually I got enough of the full picture to feel like I was there. From then on, however, I started paying attention more often, and I had a pretty good idea of the scandals of the day through everything that happened this century. I didn't always get outraged at them, and sometimes I found myself seriously annoyed when multiple investigations were conducted with the same results (that no wrongdoing was found), yet one political side couldn't take not guilty for an answer. For that reason, I refused to glue myself to the media inputs during those scandals either. There's a difference between being aware and willingly staring into the fires of Hell as they burn.

Last year I was absorbed in my own Hell, as I've written at length. I took a long, long break from politics. I couldn't handle even the slightest whiff of it. Somewhere during the fall, I was ready to peek again, but the whole country went topsy turvy, and my emotions spun out of control for several months when I thought about it all. And now I find myself in March, with the cable news playing almost every day. I scroll through Twitter constantly. I'm getting worked up into a frenzy, and I can see the effect it is having on my stress levels, and how it directly affects my body. My sleep habits have changed, my breathing and pain levels are wonky, and even my skin is breaking out. This week especially feels like a bomb has gone off in my brain. As I have live testimony and interviews playing next to me, I keep having the wind knocked out of me. I try to imagine how people felt when monumental things were said in 1974, and they heard it live. I'm pretty sure I am experiencing the same sense of astonishment they did then. I don't know that I do or don't like it. But I am aware of it. Very, very aware.