Ruth Bader Ginsburg, fierce opponent of injustice, has died. She was 87, had survived three kinds of cancer, but finally succumbed to the same thing that took my mother, metastatic pancreatic cancer. When I found out 80 minutes into our New Year, at 8:01 p.m. (Jewish New Year starts at sundown), my optimism died.

Of course I mourn her, but not just as I would any iconic octogenarian who had lived an extraordinary life. I mourn her as our gatekeeper. Not always, but often, the courts have been the last line of defense against the wilder policy spasms of this administration, and the Supreme Court is the ultimate stopper. Upon learning of her death, my immediate thought was, what happens to us now?

I recently received an email from a friend who is part of the chronic pain community. In one of her Facebook groups, someone had posted the text of a bill that had been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. She sent it to me and asked how she should respond. When I looked, I knew immediately that it was a ridiculous bill and that it wasn’t going anywhere, but my friend’s comrades were, to use a phrase, freaking out.

I think all of us know this election year is not like other election years. It already feels like we’re on a runaway roller coaster – we know if we just puke up the last four years we will all feel better – and we still have weeks to go before there will be even a hope of relief. But even our hope of relief is going to be a test of patience as we wait for mail-in ballots to be counted.

As our anxiety mounts, my own side seems to be making it worse through hysterical (and not the good kind of hysterical) fundraising texts and emails. That’s right, this is what you get for a generous contribution in the midst of an economic crisis – the beneficiaries are setting your hair on fire.

I have never been a patient person. I always said if patience is a virtue, I’ll take vice. So of course, people wasting my time ranks at the top of a fairly short list of pet peeves. I mean, my conditions already claim a good chunk of my energy. I hate giving up any unnecessarily because people can’t do their jobs right. Or drive properly. Or, well, lots of other things.

It seems, though, that pre-pandemic, I was doing better than I thought. I only know this because I have lost so much patience since stay-at-home orders for people like us became the norm. In fact, I have lost all of it. Two incidents in 24 hours a couple of weeks ago illustrate my current state of mind.

Has anyone ever told you not to let your disease define you? I bet they have. Once, I thought that was a possibility. I thought I could make my regimen routine, automatic. But as the conditions piled up like one blow after another in a boxing match, I realized that whether I liked it or not, I was my conditions.

What does that mean?

The presidential election is approaching quickly, and with it an elevated level of rhetoric and fear mongering. Until recently, most of it was just noise.

I have been telling my father for weeks that there was no need to panic about this election. During our last call I told him it might be time to worry (not panic yet). The incumbent, given as level a playing field as this country is capable of right now, is afraid he cannot win. So he rages against a system that has worked for hundreds of years and orchestrates more and more ways to skew that playing field to his advantage.

I’ve been networking a lot since I lost my job. Since I haven’t gotten a job through direct application in 20 years, networking to find the right fit seems like a good plan, at least for the near term. During a call with a new contact, he asked me what hill I would die on. I had no idea.

In the moment, I said something about treating mental health in tandem with autoimmune diagnosis, which is something I do feel strongly about. But is it a hill I would die on? When we hung up, I was bothered. I didn’t think I had one. If I didn’t have a hill I would die on, what did that mean about me as an activist?

I’m an adult I suppose, but as someone without kids, I don’t have to act like one when I don’t want to. There is no chore I actually like, so I put them off until I feel like doing them. Laundry usually waits until I run out of underwear.

One adult task I’ve been putting off for a couple of decades is setting down an advance directive (also called a living will).

I am a Type 1 diabetic, and as such, I am lucky to have an insulin pump. It is stuck to my body and delivers a constant stream of insulin to keep my blood sugars even. I wear it mostly on the waist of pants or shorts. It jumps off occasionally when I move the wrong way, but it is durable enough that it doesn’t matter.

No, the problem comes when I go to sleep.

Last week I talked about what happened to a patient who was bullied and belittled by a care professional, and how important it is to stand up for ourselves. Standing up for ourselves often means protecting the others who come behind.

This week, I want to talk about a likely offhand comment made by the writer at the end of the article about how he could find the humor and ridiculousness given enough time and distance from the incident.