COLUMN: Ugh.

Dear 2020, I'm out of patience. It isn't funny anymore. Stop it. Just stop it.

They say every man's got his breaking point. I may have finally hit mine.

I think we've all pretty much had it up here with this pandemic party, this unrest, and this year.

When things first started going south, I was as just as flummoxed as anyone. But if I'm being honest, being forced to quarantine and spend a few weeks at home wasn't much of a stretch for me. Growing up an only child backed with years of sedentary living was just the life experience I needed to soldier through the spring. 

"Oh no, you mean I have to sit around at home by myself with nothing to do but watch endless amounts of TV, listen to whatever music I fancy, and play video games all the live-long day? CURSE MY HORRIBLE LUCK!"

Okay, so maybe it wasn't a total picnic -- mostly because picnics involve leaving the house -- but for the most part, I was quite capable of entertaining myself.

But I was one of the lucky ones. The pandemic has hurt us, badly. Small businesses are struggling to survive without much in the way of assistance. I have many friends in the performing arts community -- actors, musicians, DJs, and club owners -- whose lives have been upended by this fiasco of a year. 200,000 more people have died in the US in 2020 than in 2019, and that's just staggeringly awful.

At the same time, troubling acts of violence and racism have led to civil unrest and a social upheaval the likes of which I've never seen in my life. People are taking to the streets to protest while others take to the streets to protest the protestors. You'd think events like this would lead to REAL dialogue and REAL change. Instead it's led to businesses being burned to the ground, suburbanites packing heat, and teenagers thinking they're action heroes.

Meanwhile, the internet has pretty much just gone insane. I bet the people who invented the world wide web (and I'm not talking about you, Al Gore) were really proud of their accomplishment. I reckon they triumphantly sat back thinking the world finally had open doors to global community, connection, and communication. I bet none of them thought those doors would open and a dude would stroll through accusing Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey of harvesting the blood of missing children in a Satanic plot to live forever -- or that enough people would believe him to make it newsworthy.

2020 has split our country even further in two, and turned everything -- and I mean everything -- into a political fight. Did we ever think we'd live in a world where telling someone their life matters becomes a political talking point? Or when a doctor says you should wear a mask to avoid spreading germs and you instead want to debate him about your constitutional right to be infectious? Or when any reporter says anything and is greeted by half the country calling them "fake"? 

And then there's this past weekend, when I made a rare venture into the toxic haze of public life to DJ at a club in the District -- and ended up having a front row seat to a show no one on Earth should ever have to see. An act of ignorant violence that night claimed at least one life, changed many others, and struck a blow that our nightlife community may never recover from. They say "thoughts and prayers" aren't worth much these days, but everyone affected by this senseless act has mine. Not that I've got many coherent thoughts to give -- I've barely slept since Friday.

I'm almost out of room and we haven't even touched on Iowa hurricanes, murder hornets, Kanye running for President, Chadwick Boseman dying, or the taco place tonight that gave me a DIET Coke by mistake that I didn't discover until this very moment (UGH!) Honestly, though, I'm running out of optimism. Now we can't even watch a TV show without an ad where some ominous voice tells you how so-and-so is going to ruin the country if we vote for them. No matter which way the upcoming election goes, I'm afraid angry people may take to the streets.

Once upon a time, I dismissed political strife and social conflict. "We're America," I'd reassure myself. "We're awesome and we're gonna figure it all out." I'm honestly not so sure anymore, and that's scary. We need light. We need hope. We need compassion. I used to roll my eyes at namby-pamby stuff like Hands Across America, but maybe that's what we need right now (well, except holding hands with strangers right now could theoretically kill you.)

We need to remember what truly makes America great. Hint: It's not guns. It's not having the freedom to yell at some poor restaurant manager for asking that you wear a mask. It's not a Facebook post or a 3 a.m. tweet. It's people. It's us. It's everyone working together for the common good. It's about talking, and sometimes even disagreeing, with other people without it devolving into name-calling or shade-throwing. It's about taking off hats that say "Make America Great Again" and actually doing it.

I'm no activist. I'm way better equipped to lay here on my couch and poke fun at the world. But it's tough to poke fun at a world that's rapidly becoming no fun whatsoever. So if somebody could please fix everything, that'd be swell. As for me? I'm going to enjoy my (ugh) diet soda, pet as many cats as I can, maybe watch an episode or two of Sesame Street, and try to find my optimism again. I'll have a better chance of seeing it once the sun comes out tomorrow. I have it on good authority it's only a day away.