For the love of everything

January 20th can’t come soon enough!

Anyone who knows me knows how I’ve felt about the last four years. I didn’t exactly hide my disdain for this administration. I respected other people’s opinions and beliefs and desires. But maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I should have challenged and discoursed more. Maybe I should have done a lot of things. But I thought my beliefs and values were understood.

The reality is, I feel guilty.
I feel guilty at how many Trump supporters I apparently know (some of which I found out about this week) and how I just let them go about their business without effectively challenging their views of the man over the last 4 years.
I feel guilty that I have been a horrible ally for my POC and LGBTQ friends, mainly because I fell prey to the belief that “certainly not that many people support him” and somehow believed that things were just going to figure themselves out.
I feel guilty that I severely underestimated his general appeal. I’ve been personally triggered by red hats, the “MAGA” phrase and the man in general, but I chalked that up to my being oversensitive – clearly I was missing that je ne sais quoi, that something attractive and appealing, as 70 million Americans voted enthusiastically to reelect him.

I’m sorry I’ve aligned him with a Nazi.
I’m also sorry I didn’t call him a Nazi sooner.
2020 is hands down the worst year I’ve experienced yet.

Here’s to finding a common vocabulary in which to have legit conversations in the future.
Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon.
After January 20th, maybe?