No Time for Grief

There are so many devastated individuals today. Understandably so. If you are one of the many celebrating the victory of our new president, congratulations. You are some of the few who have the privilege of not needing to worry about your rights being taken away. Good for you. Please remember to show some sympathy for those who are less than ideal today.

I have never considered myself to be a political person. I have never chosen one side over the other just because of my political affiliation because I have never been politically affiliated. I see both sides of the coin and educate myself on all the relevant arguments. At the end of the day, the only thing that I see is that we collectively chose greed, selfishness, pain, and control over compassion for our neighbors, friends, and even strangers. Collectively, we have chosen someone with 34 convicted felony charges to represent our country when hate has never made us great. We have chosen the comfort of dangerous men over the bodily autonomy of women, LGBTQ+ individuals, BIPOC people, and immigrants.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," was engraved at the foot of the Statue of Liberty in 1883. And while some breathe sighs of relief, others are and have been waiting for that same feeling for years. How can we have a woman be our symbol of liberty, a woman write our quote for the "American Dream" of freedom, have women be the literal foundation for life, and yet we desecrate them so incredulously? How can we promise "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all," when the decision we have just made does NOT include everyone?

Someone I was speaking to said something very impactful this morning; The message this sends is that you can have a clean record as a woman and run against a felon with 34 charges and still lose. What's worse, is that we have no time to grieve. Many of us are going on with our lives, going to work, going to school, and pretending like there is nothing wrong. We are hoping that our worst fear do not come to fruition even though we are watching the beginning of it happen in real time. It started with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The lives of women and LQBTQ+ individuals have spiraled significantly since then and no one seems to care. It is hard not to consider how long it will be until our right to own a home goes away. It's hard not to ponder if we may not be able to own anything without the permission of men. I truly hope that we are wrong. I truly hope that this turns out to be some wacky conspiracy that we laugh about in 50 years. But for the people who have read things like 1984, Handmaid's Tale, and Fahrenheit 451, the eerie similarities are impossible to ignore. We are in a time of immense change and it feels as if there is nothing we can do to stop it. It has been said that 2 steps forward and 1 step back is still 1 step forward... But it feels like we've only been walking backwards for a long time now. I can't help but feel like this is a death sentence.

I am terrified that I am working so hard on myself for it to be taken away from me. Within the last year, I have been going to school to become a trauma therapist for children through young adults which, as I'm sure many know, is a long journey. My brain is full of "what ifs" at the moment. What if I never get to finish school? What if I get to finish school but it is all for naught? What if my existence is reduced be simply being an incubator? What if we are past the point of no return? Could I be overreacting? I genuinely hope that is the case. But for now, this is my raw emotion/reaction to the news that was received this morning. Isn't that sad?

What's even worse than that is the sheer amount of unbothered men on my social media feed that are saying they are "unburdened." Because why would they? Why would they be burdened when they are currently the only protected people in this country right now? Why would they be burdened that their wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, and friends in their lives may not be reduced to merely objects to control? Why would they be fearful of being the Apex predator of the human race?

So, just remember, while you may be sleeping soundly tonight, there are millions of individuals who are scared that the act of simply existing may create a target on their back. Remember that there are people who are unsafe in their own homes because they don't love the "right person." Remember that mothers have quite literally died because they did not have a right to remove an unviable fetus and that clump of cells had more right to exist than the person carrying it. Remember that there are children who may have to deal with continued sexual abuse from a family member. Remember that there are thousands of children in the foster system because they were born into unsafe or unloving homes. Remember that you are not the only people in this country. Perhaps it is time to learn empathy... but what do I know. I'm just a woman, right?