Dancing in the Rain: When the Bills Come Due and We Show Up Anyway
For all the Sharons who keep us organized and send emails that inspire us to show up.
The healthcare renewal notices arrive November 1st. All healthcare companies are preparing them right now. The research tells us to brace for increases between 114% and 135%.
One hundred and fourteen percent. On the low end.
I have what’s considered an upper middle class fixed income in my area. I’m not poor by any statistical measure. And I’m facing the real possibility of giving up my health insurance—despite just being diagnosed with a condition requiring lifetime medication to prevent blindness.
If this is untenable for me, my heart breaks for the young mother about to lose SNAP benefits. For communities watching their local hospital close. For every family doing math that shouldn’t have to be done in the wealthiest nation on earth.
And what is our government doing? They shut down. Chose stalemate over negotiation. Refused to work with Democrats. They’re playing political theater while we wait for November 1st and calculate what we’ll have to give up to survive.
The Lie They Tell While We Wait for the Blow
This weekend, my Subscribe & Save items on Amazon went up 5% in one month. Soap. Toiletries. The staples that keep a household running.
That same weekend, Roger Marshall from Kansas looked into the camera without blinking: “We have gotten the grocery costs under control.”
The anchor didn’t challenge him. Didn’t ask about the gap between his words and every shopping cart in America. Didn’t mention November 1st or the government shutdown that chose stalemate over solutions.
Only WE can hold them accountable for lies told while we bleed.
The Democrats tried to negotiate. The Republicans shut it down. We’ll pay the price—literally—when those notices arrive and we choose between medication and rent, between doctor visits and groceries, between coverage and everything else.
What It Means to Keep Showing Up
It’s raining in Asheville right now. Cold, 48 degrees. Every Monday, I stand on a corner with my neighbors protesting the cruelty we’re living through. Our weekly ritual of defiance against a government that has abandoned basic humanity.
This morning, my inbox: “Yep, the forecast for rain this afternoon is 100%. Dang. But the good news is that there is no bad weather, just inadequate gear!”
I responded: “I’ll be there with music and a smile :)”
And I’m going. Right now. In the rain.
I’m going for the drivers who flip me off every week. For the ones who squeal their tires inches from my feet, who punch the gas to make sure I inhale their black exhaust. I’m going in hopes that when their renewal notice arrives, when they’re choosing between groceries or gas to get to work, when they’re staring at that grocery receipt—maybe they’ll connect the dots. Maybe they’ll understand this resistance on the corner is FOR them too.
When they have that moment, I hope they join us. We need them. They are always welcome.
That’s all I know to do right now. Keep showing up. Keep speaking out. Keep choosing solidarity—even for the people who hate me for it. Especially for them.
The Weight We Carry, The Dance We Choose
My parents fought for a better world. My mother broke glass ceilings in spaces that told her she didn’t belong. My father’s generation defeated actual Nazis—the ones who tried to end democracy through violence and hate.
If they could do that, I can stand in the rain and dance.
This isn’t hyperbole or metaphor. This is the choice we face every day: to let the cruelty break us, or to meet it with music and mutual aid and the stubborn insistence that we deserve better.
November 1st is coming. Those envelopes. The 114-135% increases. The impossible math. Our government chose shutdown instead of solutions. They’re counting on us to be too overwhelmed, too isolated, too afraid to organize.
But the rain is falling and still we dance—because dancing in the rain with your community is resistance. Because joy in the face of cruelty is strategic. Because they want us broken and we refuse.
The Only Thing I Know For Sure
I don’t have easy answers about fixing a system this broken. I don’t know how to make numbers add up when healthcare spikes over 100% and groceries keep climbing while politicians lie about having it “under control.” I don’t know how to force a government to negotiate when they’d rather shut down than address our survival.
But I know we’re not alone in this struggle. Every person reading these words is waiting for November 1st with the same dread, doing their own impossible math, making their own brutal choices.
And I know we’re stronger together than they want us to believe. Every Monday on that cold corner, we prove it. When we show up—in the rain, exhausted, while bills pile up and government abandons us—we’re building the world our parents fought for.
So keep dancing with me. Not because it’s easy. Not because we can see the end. Not because November 1st won’t hurt. But because this is how movements survive hard seasons—by refusing to let cold and rain and cruelty and government shutdowns stop us from showing up for each other.
There is no bad weather. Just inadequate gear and insufficient solidarity.
We can fix both.
See you this evening. I’ll bring the music.
If you’re struggling with impossible choices right now—and so many of us are—you’re not alone. Share your story in the comments if it helps. Connect with your neighbors. Find your Monday corner.
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