I totally feel you on this, Jessica.

As I've previously shared, I worked briefly as a university professor and the experiences that you've described here SO closely parallel my own:

Because I taught the basic English Composition courses, and, like yourself, I would "try" and have the students maybe be not quite so strident in their approaches to abortion/guns/death penalty...

Did it work? Sometimes, but overall, usually not.

It was dispiriting, to say the least, the VERY least.

And, I remember thinking too: "Gosh, you know, 18 years old seems terribly young to have already made up your mind about everything in the world"

Like you: I'm fucking tired of all this shit.

Just absolutely exhausted to the max.

Because ultimately: what have our efforts brought us? The answer is "Not really anything" - this may be a strange analogy but almost a week ago now, my beautiful fur canine boy Jake departed this world. He had been so very sick, so very weak, it truly broke my heart and made me cry every single day to see and bear witness to his painful state in front of my eyes.

This is now what America feels like to me. It's wobbling. It can't stand up straight anymore. It's so weak that it can barely lift it's head. It's time to pull the plug, administer the shot, let it GO. Let it BE.

Time to accept the truth: America was at one time a grand and noble experiment that has FAILED.

Miserably.