Hope

I've been trying to put my finger on this feeling. 

It is the familiar dull ache. Exhausted but can't sleep. Trudge through the day, defeated, but coming to terms with the future. 

Loss is not the right word. I've lost people and will lose more and it is not that.

The last time I felt this way I was 17 years old. I was in my Brooklyn high school. It was September 11, 2001.

I remember walking home in a haze - there were no busses - as ashes still fell. I worried about my sister, stuck in the Bronx and my father, working on Long Island. I got nervous about seeing my mom again anytime soon since she worked in the northernmost borough but then I remembered she wore her old running shoes that day. True to form she walked home.

I cried to her. I cried because it was unknown and because I feared a draft. I wanted to go to college and do something with my life and I saw the upcoming conflict as an event that could take that path away. 

But I didn't get drafted. I did not go to war. Somehow I healed. Somehow in February of 2002 I got on a plane and went to look at a college that I'd later attend as a graduate student. 

The election is not 9/11 but it is no less a fork in the road. I, perhaps naively, believed that the country would continue along the progressive agenda that aligned with my ideals. If history teaches anything it is that we will find that road at some point.

I will be okay. And I will use my privilege as a platform to do what I can for those who may not be okay. If you are able to please do the same. 

I hope that in five months I'm okay getting on a plane again. 

In the words of Kurt Vonnegut, "God damn it, you've got to be kind."