Who Can I Blame Now?

I was in the shower last night, getting ready for bed, when Beloved walked in. "You're not going to believe this," he said. "Osama bin Ladin is dead."

I peered through the fogged-up glass, watching the rivulets run down. I could barely see Beloved's face. He doesn't walk upstairs when I'm in going-to-bed mode to tell me just anything.

At first, my mind wanted to close it off like it was no big deal. It's been so fucking long that we've been hunting bin Ladin, through two presidents and a gamut of emotion for me and the rest of the American people.

I didn't know what I felt.

Part of it was anger in thinking with this guy dead, another guy will just pop up. (Or will he? We didn't actually get another Hitler.)

Part of it was relief that at least this particular asshole was out of commission.

Part of it was fear of retaliation, a desire to duck below the windows every time a car drives by.

And part of it was curiousity over what will happen to Osama bin Ladin's soul.

Mostly, I was tired. The news didn't make me jubilant, it made me feel exhausted. I knew the world could be a brutal place prior to September 11, 2001, but I didn't internalize it until then. Since then, so much has happened on U.S. soil, both natural and man-made -- Katrina, the BP oil spill, the recession -- it has often felt like one flight of bad news after another since that day -- really bad news, end-of-days kind of bad news.

I don't think I'm the only American who hung that stinking wreath of excrement around Osama bin Ladin's neck, let him represent all that was wrong with humanity.

Now he's gone, so perhaps I'll have to look harder into all that is wrong with the world -- and that makes me tired.

So I went to bed and I prayed for Osama bin Ladin's soul. I prayed he knew not what he did.