I used to laugh at my husband and call him old man (he’s nine years older) when he would reminisce on his childhood, and how much better it was than children’s lives growing up now. But I’ve started to yearn for previous days myself as this country descends further into chaos and mean-spiritedness.

There has always been racism and misogyny and classism and religious prejudice in this country, but it feels like everyone is just letting their hate out as much as possible, in as many ways as possible, in the current climate. Self-interest has supplanted the common good. Who cares if someone else’s child goes hungry, as long as yours is fed?

People have seen that their actions have no real repercussions, and the social stigma of being a bigot has disappeared (the only thing to have kept many in check.) It has been replaced with back-slapping, subtweets, and casual disregard for one’s neighbors. In my rural area racial slurs are used often, women are supposed to defer to the man of the house, and I can’t help but wonder how I would be treated if my neighbors knew I was Jewish.

I ache for the days when a school shooting was a shocking event. I remember watching the Columbine shooting as a high school student, sitting in shock while staring at the news report, unable to process what I was seeing, and believing it was a horrible, tragic, one-off. I was obviously wrong – children have continued to be slaughtered in a place that should be safe. I honestly don’t know how anyone sends their kids off to school in the morning.

I long for the days when science was taken as fact, due to the amount of testing and trials performed. I want vaccines to remain in play, I don’t want children dying from diseases that are easily prevented; vaccines have been proven effective and safe and, while keeping the person who got the shot healthy, it also keeps people with no immune system healthy. I am one of those people, a transplant patient, unable to fight off an influx of the many diseases that were almost eradicated but are now surging. When there is no herd immunity those of us at risk are in danger of catching everything. Considering even a cold can land me in the hospital, I’m terrified of the spread of measles, COVID, anything viral, and now other diseases that shouldn’t have to be on my radar.

I want the times when the country cared enough for its people to make sure its poorest and neediest had help. As grocery prices surge to a ridiculous high, more people are having to make do with less. What once paid for a full month’s worth of groceries in my house now barely covers two weeks. With more social services cuts we will have people literally starving in the streets, those with health issues going without medicine or treatment, a nation who has lost an entire class of people. And I have become cynical enough to wonder if that’s not the point.

I know I have quite a lot of privilege to even be able to write this. I am a white woman with a house, transportation, and enough money to eat three meals a day. But I am also reliant on my family and am on Medicare and Medicaid (literally the only way I can afford my thirty-plus medications). I am terrified of where we are going, on what I will do if I no longer have government help paying for medicines. Will I be left to die? Deemed undesirable because of my physical impairments? Subtly told to “let nature take its course?”

I don’t really have a pithy or smart end to this. Maybe I should refer to Mr. Rogers’s quote “look for the helpers,” but amend it to be the helpers. Be the change we all need. Think of others, we need to take care of each other.

Emily Littlewood lives with her husband, Jason, in Raphine, Va. After getting a degree to teach English, Speech and Theater, she began working in banks. She is currently copy-editing for Streetlight and working back toward her passions.