A Year Marked by Loss

2016 was a year marked by loss.

From acquaintances, friends, friends close enough to be considered family, coworkers, and fellow fighters in education, this was a year where my personal resolve was tested beyond belief. Accidents, medical fatalities, suicides, overdoses – all results were the same. I went to more funerals that year than I have in the past 25 years combined. And I won’t even comment on the laundry list of celebrities that passed away in 2016. (Here’s a full list. Still miss you Alan Rickman).

However, not all loss equates to death.

By voting in Donald Trump, the United States also lost a piece of its identity. The hope and change Obama promised, only reaching certain areas and skipping over large swaths of land, gave part of the country eight years for the seeds of despair to plant, flourish, and reproduce in gargantuan masses. Fellow Americans, we did this. We all elected Trump. By not fighting hard enough for the justice we believe should flourish. By refusing to acknowledge the truth that some were being ignored. In a fit of seemingly masochistic hate, we all voted in this regime whether or not we cast a vote for the current administration. I truthfully did not believe our country was capable of this kind of sabotage, so tell me my fellow Americans who did vote for him, who are we now? We are no longer the land of the free and home of the brave when we’re controlled by fear. We’ve lost our identity.

But then again, change always follows loss.

Whether we like it or not, our national identity is shifting from from one of meager tolerance of diversity to a far more critical and fear-based populace. I, too, harbor more fear than I used to. But my fear is shifting, morphing quietly in the transitional chaos to something else.

Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to anger. And anger leads to suffering.

I cannot in good conscience call for a ceasefire. Trump has wronged too many people, too many of my friends and family, for me to feasibly do so. They are angry, and they deserve to be. Threatening to erode one’s quality or quantity of life is nothing to be taken lightly. But I can ask for understanding. For those who did vote for him, understand the ideological basis against voting for him. Understand their fears, their passions, their anger at you for voting for him. And for those who did not cast a ballot for him, understand the economic and social ramifications of the past eight years that would  cause 60 million people to vote the way they did. Their fear had already morphed to hatred and anger, but at the core it is still fear. Fear of the inability to protect their own family. Fear of their loss of life. And to the international community, please excuse the US for the next four years. We’re going through a period of transition and have no idea what the fuck is happening.

But remember my fellow Americans, we will all die if we succumb to protecting our own. What allows us to survive is the ability to resist change, but what allows us to flourish is embracing it.

May 2017 be marked by compassion. The world is going to need a whole lot of it.