Progress Interrupted

December 15th, 2016
It is unrealistic to think that I can feel like this for 4 years. That I can walk around with this much pain and anger and fear for the next 4 years of my life. This is my life and my time and my freedom. I am owed those years and no one can take them from me. I don't ever want feel the way I felt on Election night. I don't want to feel like my life is suddenly on the line because I lost an election.
So, I'm going to write down exactly how I feel right now, in this moment, and then I'm going to take that pain and anger and that fear and I'm going to turn it into something that no one's privilege, not even my own, can ever take away from me.


I have been sitting here trying to figure out why things are the way that they are. Why the state of this country is okay and more importantly why this is the majority. This wasn't rigged. It wasn't an accident. This was popular demand. Popular opinion. Why I am forced to accept this and why does it seem like from a social and global perspective this year was a disaster? Why do people hate each other? Why does everyone blame anyone that doesn't look like them? Why do so many groups exercise so much privilege and experience so less pain than everyone else? Why do certain types of people always lose? Why does electing Donald Trump make me feel like the smallest most unimportant human on the planet? Why am I suddenly scared to walk past white men in southern Virginia? Why am I making assumptions on whether I think they voted republican or not? Why do we think its ok to judge them and in turn do the same thing that we accuse them of doing to us? Why is that how we operate?


I guess I'm looking for a way to move on quietly and respectfully. A way to hold on the any glimpse of hope. I am looking for a way to forget the things he said and he did. Forget his lack of experience and lack of acceptance for anyone that doesn't experience the privilege he does. I am trying to find a reason to believe that this country wasn't just looking for any reason to elect another white man. That Hillary was never going to win, regardless of who she was running against. I want to believe that people were not attracted to Donald Trump for the wrong reasons. I am looking for a reason to believe that somehow the people that voted for him must believe in him for some other reason. I'm looking for a reason to keep loving people. To keep giving people the benefit of the doubt. I looking for a reason to release my rage in the healthiest way possible.