A Very Difficult Day
I woke up this morning ready to write another blog post because I was so upset over a particularly nasty incident involving our mom. I checked my email and there it was, the perfect response written by my sister, Stacy. We started this blog together 8 years ago, but sometimes life gets in the way and she has had to step back from blogging. This morning, she’s back with a vengeance and I couldn’t love what she wrote any more. Elle
Today was a very difficult day. After staying up until 3am to see whose hands would hold the fate of our nation I was shocked, scared, and very disappointed. The day continued with sadness as I browsed Facebook and saw post after post slamming Hillary or Trump. The worst was friends and family members attacking each other for the outcome of this election. Even my elderly mother was attacked on her own page by someone who voted for Trump. I, of course, tried to defend her because 1. You don’t attack my mother 2. See number 1. This man called us baby killers. This hatred sickens me. This whole election has been sickening. People have posted nasty things to each other and today here it was again.
I went back to bed and tried to block out the hate and the fear that I felt. Most of the day I just went through it in a daze trying to wrap my head around what we have become. Whether our candidate won or lost the election is over, when will the hate stop?
Some people made fun of those Hillary supporters crying about the outcome. I was upset but I didn’t cry, not at first. It was when I started driving to work that it hit me and I did start to cry. Now I’m not someone who cries so what was going on? That’s when it hit me, I wasn’t crying that Hillary lost I was crying out of fear. Trump’s candidacy was based on him putting down women, trying to control them, demean them, and talk about assaulting them. This is the type of man we fear.
This man, to me, represents the first 17 years of my adult life. This man represents everything that my ex-husband had been to me;controlling, demeaning, putting me down, and telling me that I wasn’t thin enough, pretty enough, etc. He was the controlling man who forbid me to work because women should be at home.
To some people, he may represent the man who assaulted them. To others, he represents the nameless faces who have taunted or teased them for being different. He represents all the people who have discriminated against another person based on their gender, race or sexual orientation.
We’re fearful. We’re fearful for our near future and for the future of our children. Is he going to do what he promised and deport millions of people, or take away Healthcare for others, eliminate coverage for preexisting conditions, will there be a wall between this country and another? What about the Supreme Court, will he nominate someone who will change Roe vs. Wade or same-sex marriage? These are our fears, each one is personal to someone, an American citizen, someone’s mother, wife, sister, brother, husband etc. And each one is real.
We have a right to be sad, we have a right to be scared and we have a right to be treated with respect. Just as those who voted for our new president have a right to be treated with respect. There is no need to attack each other or call someone crazy or stupid for feeling a certain way. We are all in this together, one nation under God, to the republic for which it stands with Liberty and Justice for all.
