Pro-choice activists rally at the Indiana Statehouse on June 25. (AJ Mast/Associated Press)
Terrible. But not lost
Things are terrible. But they are not lost.
I’m sad and hopeless and distraught and afraid. I’m also angry and vengeful and determined and steadfast. I am crying. I am signing petitions. I am plotting moves. I am making legal arrangements. I am worrying about my marriage. I am fearful for my daughter.
I am confident this is the death knell of the conservatives, and this will lead to their ultimate demise. They went too far. Too far.
And I am sure this is the end of freedom and democracy as we know it.
I am caught in a spiral, a well, a hole of social media and news stories. I am in complete denial, buying sundresses and sandals. I am worrying about luggage getting lost and what to serve guests for dinner. I am wondering what dinner will look like in the future. And whether women will still be able to wear sundresses and sandals.
I am thinking about the Middle East and Ukraine. I am thinking about how quickly it goes from normal to not. I am recovering from COVID, my skin covered in a rash the doctors say is the virus.
Is it the virus? Or is it the world? Is my body rejecting evil, manifesting my horror in angry red bumps that make me want to crawl from my skin?
I am relishing petting my dogs, watering my flowers, walking barefoot in the grass. I am wondering if my home will be taken from me, my property, my money, my love, my daughter.
I am filled with terror as I wonder what my daughter’s life will look like. Will it be the same? Will it be better? Will it be worse? Will it be like living under the Taliban?
We will move, I think. Will we be able to move? When will we have to move before it is too late? Is it already too late? Am I being overdramatic?
They said I was being overdramatic when I feared Trump would be elected. They said I was being overdramatic when I feared Roe would be overturned. And now here we sit — with the brain-washed masses cheering the loss of their very own freedoms.
What about when their daughters get pregnant from their boyfriends when they are too young, too poor, too ignorant to raise a child? Worse: What about when their daughters get pregnant by incest or rape?
Those with money and access will find a way. The poor and people of color will suffer again. More. Still.
And yet too many vote against themselves: unreal promises made; an inability to understand that these men in power love them only for their ability to be slave labor, but otherwise, they loathe them.
It all seems unreal, and it is all real.
And still, there are meals to cook and words to write and relationships to tend. My wife watches the news.
So much news. Too. Much. News. She assures me it will be ok. She doesn’t know if it will be ok.
She assured me Trump would never get elected; Roe would never be overturned; gay marriage will remain, at least for those of us already married.
But she doesn’t know. No one knows. But, for me, she holds it together. If she loses it, she fears we will be lost.
And I hold it together because I don’t want her to feel the burden of comforting me, of feeling forced to assure me of things she absolutely cannot assure me of.
That is all we can do for one another right now — keep ourselves afloat. We need to be afloat. We can scream and cry and write angry words and fear for our futures.
And then we must fight.
We have to vote. We all have to vote.
WE HAVE TO VOTE.
We have to elect people of sanity and vote out people of mayhem. These men want mayhem. These hateful, ignorant leaders want mayhem. They want us fighting ourselves and one another while they enslave us and strip us of our bodily autonomy and our rights, blade by blade.
Don’t let them. Mourn this loss. We have lost something inconceivable.
And then focus — laser, laser focus. There is no more “they go low, we go high.” There is only “they attack, we destroy.”
We destroy their strongholds in any voting areas. We destroy their ability to brainwash those most at risk.
We destroy their voices and their power, and we bring light back where darkness is overtaking us.
This isn’t over. Nothing is over. We have barely begun.
Now the real work starts. No time to be polite. No time to behave nicely. No time to be cautious.
The only thing there is time for is to fight.
Our country is adrift, and we must right it again without delay. We must hold each other up right now.
Hold each other up to fight.
Things are terrible. But they are not lost.
