My heart is at once mending and breaking and today I am hopeful and extremely afraid.
Black Lives Matter. LGBTQ people should be able to love how they want. Trans people should be able to identify how they choose. Workers deserve fair wages. Everyone should have access to fair and affordable housing. Healthcare is a human right.
Although my opinions are strong and I have never hidden them away, in the past I might have encouraged us all to come together together after today anyway, maybe leave bitterness behind and move forward in fighting on, but the fact is that we are at a critical juncture and I actually don’t have to entertain both sides.
I have argued and gone to therapy and journaled and talked until I am blue in the face about how to do this. I don’t know how to move forward or exist in authentic relationships with people who oppose my family and loved one’s survival. After living with the stress of my family being on the precipice of losing everything I also have nothing left to give to someone who genuinely does not care about our destruction. This is the first election I have felt so vulnerable, and frankly in comparison I am not. I am white, and I survived the pandemic illness. I am not afraid my rights to love and stay married to my husband will be taken away or my very identity negated. I do not have much to fear from the police for my own well-being. Although things are the hardest they have ever been, although every day is a scramble, although we worry about basic needs, we haven’t fallen yet.
Over the years I have tried to blur lines in the sand, but I can’t survive and also reach out any more. I can’t watch someone vote away the rights for another to exist without persecution for the color of their skin. I can’t love someone who is trans and then also genuinely love someone who votes for their oppression. Neutrality always benefits the oppressor. And it’s painful to see people saying “we can all love each other at the end of the day” “It’s just a disagreement” “we all want the best for America, it’s just about how we get there”
We don’t. It’s not. This isn’t toppings on pizza, or whether or not Uggs are the worst. This is morality. This is survival. I can, however, recognize the humanity in someone and their right to exist without having to give them pieces of myself. I can engage in conversation. I can offer the basics. But I’m done trying to blur lines. I’m done trying to offer love and kindness and companionship when there isn’t any in return. And yes, a vote for someone who opposes those basic human rights is a retraction of love. It is a negation of a relationship, it is the tearing apart of a fabric of being able to be together in an authentic way. My focus is not on trying to mend a chasm that doesn’t want mended. My focus is on destroying the systems that have been built to push people over the edge and into the void. It is on amplifying voices that haven’t been heard. I can’t promise to do it perfectly. I am always learning, and I am grateful to my teachers.
So here it is, my line in the sand. The last thing to give to the universe before the star explodes. My heart is at once mending and breaking and today I am hopeful and extremely afraid.
Until The Last Minute 