Thank God
Where were you on Saturday November 7th, 2020? What were you doing?
The day is forever a memory etched in our brains. Most people I know were celebrating in one way or another. I enjoyed getting videos from friends in NYC, DC, and elsewhere of the celebrations taking place in their neighborhoods. All day my phone was going off with texts, phone calls, FaceTimes of happiness.
I probably would have joined everyone if I hadn’t spent all week celebrating. I was a bit more confident than most after looking at county level data leading up to Election Day. My day was spent resting, remembering how to breathe again. It felt as though at about 11 AM, after the initial rush of jubilation, I felt the elephant that had been sitting on my chest. Like all of the stress, anxiety, tension that my body had been dealing with for 4 years came to surface. As the sadness was washed away with the happy, my body gently reminded me, “You’ve been through a lot.” And so, I spent a lot of my day and night breathing in for 3 seconds, holding it for 3 seconds, and breathing out for 3 seconds. I may have dropped my shoulders for the first time in 4 years while writing this post too. Sometime in the afternoon, I took a 3-hour nap. Because I feel tired, and immensely relieved.
Below is a list of thoughts and emotions that went through my mind today:
- I’m looking forward to not feeling an existential dread and thinking dark thoughts every day I wake up.
- I’m looking forward to believing in the good in humanity again.
- I’m looking forward to centralized institutions being rebuilt so I have a lot less to process on a day-to-day basis. That I don’t have to worry for example about falsified COVID numbers, and can just go to the CDC website to find the information I need and move on with my life.
- I don’t have to feel the dread of normalcy that is being a minority in Trump’s America. I belong. Though there’s work to do, I am appreciative for the majority of the country saying, That’s not ok. Historically, this doesn’t happen. In the last 20 years, populist movements at a global level like this have succeeded and stick. It is a remarkable achievement on America’s part. We shouldn’t take that for granted today, or any day going forward. Ever again. Because if we don’t grow and take care of each other, we will fall right back into this. We saw how quickly this descent can happen, and next time they’ll have someone a lot more competent at the helm.
- On a related note, the last 4 years of my life has been a mad rush to get my life together, majorly in response to being a minority in this country. It felt like if I didn’t prove my worth, I would be seen as a thug/vermin/leech or however else fascists see minorities. If I didn’t prove my worth and value, I would be in physical danger and may too end up in a concentration camp. And so, while I’ve accomplished a lot, I’m very much looking forward to achieving not out of fear, but out of personal interest.
- I’m looking forward to plans of rooting myself in this country, and not having an exit plan seriously in mind. Though, a PhD in Toronto or Fontainebleau still sounds nice.
- I’m looking forward to having conversations that don’t involve an elephant in the room.
- I’m told often to stick to facts instead of expressing my feelings. There’s a time and place for everything. But for the last 4 years, I felt crazier and crazier as if the facts I was reading were too farfetched, and the things I envisioned were too out there (Colin Jost calling it fascism on SNL tonight makes me feel better!). It did teach me that envisioning the future and making that stuff happen is not normal, so I just need to work on honing and communicating that in a timely way instead of asserting myself at random times.
- Along those same lines, I need to be better about respecting other peoples’ space/boundaries. When there’s so much to process and others are already pounded with bad news all the time, they aren’t going to have time for your realities.
- I’m excited to be able to start trusting others again, and generally living in an inclusive society again. Not one stoked by hate and fear. I’ve been tired of living in a society or working in organizations with people above me who I don’t respect, and I’m supposed to just do what they say because of their title. For four years, I felt like “Your way of doing things led us to where we are now, so you are clearly wrong and need to make way.” That won’t necessarily go away, but I’m sure I won’t feel it anywhere near as much.
- In November 2016, the curiosity in me felt like I clearly missed something and I felt too insulated living in NYC. I wanted to be in Birmingham for a variety of reasons, with the main one being that I wanted to be exposed to the different perspectives all the time. I just felt like I needed to understand why people were so drawn to this other side of society that I had no grasp of. Where I felt wronged on a daily basis, they found great joy. I’m excited for my journey to understand myself and the world around me to be much more tempered and positive.
- On a similar note, I wrote a post on 11/14/16. It ends with “Because if he can fucking do it, so can I.” I’m grateful for the motivation, and excited to move on from that angst.
- I’m excited for norms, truths, and laws to matter again after getting trounced on every god damn day.
- I’m excited to not have to distract myself so much anymore, or immerse myself into something I have no control over. I feel as though I have been over-stimulated and have really detached myself from reality a lot of times. Whether that be overworking myself, constantly reading things on Twitter, or whatever else it may have been.
- I’m extremely grateful to live in a society that isn’t going to be completely in freefall, descending with no bottom at all, a traumatizing new horror to live through every day. To instead live in a society that at least will have some sort of plans in place. Whether I agree with their way of execution is a different thought.
I turn 30 in a couple of weeks and was also doing some self-reflecting. Things about myself I’ve learned or thought of:
- Though I tend to be good at being assertive in a group setting, I could work on trying to be in less control of things and shut up more, or be better at listening. Other peoples’ perspectives are just as valid, just because I have a feeling or reaction doesn’t mean they don’t have one. I can get very engulfed in my perspective and not be flexible in that. That goes along with continual practice of empathy. At the same time, you are responsible for yourself, and you’re not responsible for others’ reactions or feelings.
- I can work on being more present. I can be more accepting of the reality in front of me and my own reality/perspective of things, instead of my head being elsewhere.
- Along similar lines, I can do a better job of understanding my place and role in things. I tend to think I’m being very freefloating/expansive as a person, but others might take it as intruding on their space or whatever else.
- I’m starting to learn about letting go of friendships and moving on/letting go. I’ve had a hard time with that for a lot of my life, but am more accepting of that now.
- I’ve gotten better about recognizing toxic environments or friendships, and also better about navigating those.
- Positivity is infectious. I want to make a conscious effort to find the happy things in life in a healthy way. I find that when I’m comfortable and good at something, I have a lot of confidence and let go of my insecurities. I want to do more of that. I’ve lived a lot of life in the mixolydian and could stand to benefit from spending less time in self-imposed uncertainty.
- Related to uncertainty, I would like to be a lot more consistent.
- I think there’s a lot of me that won’t change. Life lessons don’t necessarily go away or anything. But, I think I’ve made enough mistakes in my life to understand how I can be a better person.
I’m excited for the future. I hope you are too 😊