A Day of Tears and Hope
Jan 23, 2021
I posted about my feelings on Inauguration Day on social media. I was so hopeful. I wrote about watching the inauguration, and crying. All morning. Like, I couldn’t stop. I just sat on my living room couch, by myself, crying.
Good tears. Good crying. The cleansing-type of crying.
I wrote about the emotional release of all the discomfort and fear and concern I’d felt over the last four years. In my living room, I rid my soul of the lies and rhetoric and vitriol and division of the last four years, which had finally broken me. I felt like I could breathe again for the first time in a long while.
I understand that millions of people did not vote for Joe Biden. I understand that millions of people watched the inauguration and did not feel the same hopefulness I did.
What I don’t understand — and frankly, wasn’t prepared for — were the responses to my post that continued to pit Republicans against Democrats. A continuation of the cancel culture and the “us versus them” mentality. A perpetuation of the “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” point of view.
I am a registered Republican. But I am an American first.
That also means I am 100% a candidate-voter. I refuse to do is vote for candidates simply because of the letter behind their names. And if a candidate insists on stripping rights away from groups of Americans based on the color of their skin or gender or sexual preference or religion or other arbitrary criteria, that candidate will not get my vote. Regardless of party affiliation.
I’m looking for a candidate that will people the country first. In my opinion, there is a profound difference between leading with hope and leading with fear. And if given the choice, I will always choose hope.
I honestly do not believe that it does the country any good to party draw lines in the sand, and continue to push against anything proposed by the “other” side.
We must find a way back to the ability to have intelligent discourse, and bipartisan solutions to the country’s issues. The party-over-country approach to governing and legislating ensures that the only loser isn’t the other political party. Instead, it’s the American people who come up on the losing side of that tug-of-war.
There is so much work to be done to get us back to the United States of America.
But Wednesday felt like a step in the right direction for me.
I remain hopeful.
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