We just lost Ruth Bader Ginsberg. My dad told me, and I broke down a little.

In the German language, there is a word for the way that I’m feeling. Weltschmerz. It means, literally, world-sadness. Depending on the context, it can denote varying degrees of deep sadness with the flaws of life, of world-weariness. Weltschmerz is the pain of the world.

The series of unfortunate events that’ve happened in 2020 have turned this year into a sort of meme. It’s almost like a joke.

Australia was burning, and the Amazon rainforest was burning, and then Voldemort was about to start WWIII with North Korea. Then there was a novel virus that spread from bats in a cave to a wet meat market in China, and then all over the world. The world was temporarily closed. Hundreds of thousands of people died and angry republicans wouldn’t listen because haircuts and the economy were more important. JK Rowling became vocally transphobic. And then, in Minneapolis, George Floyd was killed by police, and there were Black Lives Matter rallies in all 50 states, and there was police brutality at peaceful protests. Chadwick Boseman passed away. And then Voldemort tried to shut down the post office, so that people wouldn’t be able to vote. Immigrant detention centers are feeling more and more like concentration camps and Voldemort’s rhetoric is actively encouraging this. And the west coast is on fire, and we’ve just lost our RBG.

The seat she once filled is now open.

It’s only September. Hold my hand.

I picture a moment, at New Year’s eve, surrounded by my friends. We stop playing Mario cart for long enough to count down at the tops of our lungs, and watch the ball drop. We knock back glasses of sparkling grape juice and some of us kiss and it’s extraordinary gay, and that’s okay here. All of it is. And afterwards we never speak of 2020 ever again.

But the world keeps turning and burning regardless of who’s keeping track of the years. In a way, it’ll always be like this.

In the middle of all of it, there are people who devote their entire lives to taking care of the state of the world. Once in a while, you find people who’ve spent their whole lives speaking up for those whose voices aren’t being heard.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg was one of those people. She once said that she wanted to make things a little better than they might have been if she hadn’t been there.

And she did.

Romer v. Evans, Lawrence v. Texas, Windsor v. U.S., Obergefell v. Hodges, Bostock v. Clayton.

So many others. These were moments that somehow managed to contain the opposite of Weltschmerz.

Hugs on this Friday, of all Fridays.