“We’re gonna be alright, mom, because we always are,” she reassured me.
She wasn’t talking about the election, but it made my eyes tear. I’ve had weepy eyes quite often this week. For the first time in 30 years, I was overcome with emotion at the polls, for starters. I don’t know how to explain it, but when I slid my ballot in to be counted, my heart suddenly filled my throat and my eyes watered. I felt a heaviness, as if my ballot was the last chance I had at something but couldn’t explain what.
There was a fatigue that quit hiding in my bones this week and showed itself unexpectedly and often. I spent a good bit of time talking to folks this week and almost all commented at some point that they were tired. We’re fatigued. We’re COVID fatigued. We’re Zoom fatigued. We’re people fatigued. We’re election fatigued. The rules keep changing, and I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for some sense of normalcy and stability, but our fatigue worries me.
My biggest hope for our country is that we don’t become complacent now. I mean, yesterday I saw post after post from white, middle-class women declaring that we could breathe. “You’re safe now,” they would write, and I wanted to scream out that was a lie. I wanted to tell them to stop with that lie of safety for my friends of color because social injustices haven’t magically disappeared. It will, in my honest opinion, probably be harder and scarier for my black and brown friends, to be honest, because none of us know what’s going to happen next.
Time to Relax?
But we’ve already begun to lean back in our LaZBoys, unzip our pants so we can breathe, and exhale. So, what next? I mean, my job won’t change regardless of who is sitting in the White House. The working poor and working class are still going to struggle in the same ways they are now until there are changes to policies and systems. Do I have more hope that we may not have to scream as loud? Yes. But I am fully aware that we’ll have to put in the work to be seen.
There’s also this feeling of unrest surrounding me. I want to relax and exhale, but my conscience is telling me that I need to stay prepared. I’ve cried a lot over the past four years. I’ve worried over so many things. I’ve worried for so many people. I’m tired. In the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” And, even though I feel as if impacted people will have a better chance of surviving over the next four years, I know that we’re still going to have to dig and claw our way out.
I hope that if one thing comes out of this election it’s the acknowledgment of the importance of our vote. We lost great candidates from our state legislature this time by less than 200 votes. And even though I know there’s always going to be a winner and a loser, I also know that we have to work to create an environment of respect for our right to vote. We have to find a way to get people interested in working toward long-term change rather than band aid solutions. We have to find a way to keep people involved in the process so we can continue to push back against injustices. The issues that divided us are still there. We’ve had every one of our ugly parts as a country exposed, and to think for a moment that a new president is going to erase those is short sighted and naive.
The Rebuild
We need to rest. We need to take a few moments and welcome healing into our nation and into our homes. And then we need to start the conversations again because it’s our responsibility to right the wrongs in our communities. It’s our responsibility to make sure that the past four years were lessons in what we will and won’t accept. We now know what needs to be repaired and we need to start organizing to make sure they are.
I don’t know a lot of people who would want to relive this year. We’re battling an invisible foe, COVID-19, and we’re battling very visible ones, such as racism and moral divides, at the same time. What I learned from this presidential election is that more of us want a change than not. People crossed party lines to vote for a new version of America. That was what the election proved to me. And I know we’re tired. But, again in the words of Fannie Lou, “I’m tired of fighting so I fight harder.”
Let’s rebuild our country. With each other.
Onward,
Amy Jo
