These photos were taken two weeks ago. And what a year these two weeks have been. It now feels ridiculous to post these photos on my silly little blog where I document outfits that I wear and why I wear them.
I remember the first few days after my mom died. I felt like there had been a seismic shift in my reality. With one phone call, everything I thought I knew to be true vanished. My life went from 4k technicolor to black and white.
And then, it happened again last week when it was clear he would win another term. The sun, the lightness that I felt a few weeks ago when my daughter took these photos, was gone. Everything I thought about the world we live in- good triumphing over evil, that more people want to discover and delight in our similarities than fear monger about the ways in which we are different, and that most of us want to turn the page and get back to normalcy- vanished.
I woke up the day after the 2016 election hurt.
I woke up on Nov 6, 2024, angry. We are now entering their version of this country with eyes fully open. People looked at everything that happened under his term, the civil case that found him liable for rape, the 30 plus felony convictions, the impeachments, the racism, the outright disgust for immigrants, the transphobia and said “yep! more of that!”
I worry for my sons and daughters. I worry for my trans and LBGTQIA friends and family. I worry about the world my grandchildren will inherit. I worry that history is repeating itself.
There are no more dog whistles. They are using blow horns. They are not saying the quiet part out loud, they are shouting it in the streets through bull horns.
It feels like the loss of a parent all over again.
And, no one is coming to save us. There is no one to slay the monsters hiding in the closet. No one is rushing into our rooms in the middle of the night to tell us this is all a bad dream.
I haven’t even started to process things. I’m living in a self-imposed bubble without news, social media, and doom-scrolling. Perhaps I’m attempting to hold on to a little of “before” because I’m unprepared for life in the after.
There is very little I’m sure of these days. The other day in a state of despair and uselessness, I pulled an oracle card. It said “Your existence is the resistance”. So, I’m going to hold onto that truth while I figure out what comes next.
