thoughts on today

 today, i cried exactly once. i cried to my mom, on facetime, while she showed me my cat back home. 

i miss him a lot! people don't talk about how hard it is to leave an elder cat across the country. of course, he is immortal so it's not like i'll never see him again but i miss that comfort.

i'm sure my spike in emotion while on the phone with my mom also had to do with other topics besides missing my cat. 

you know, like perhaps the events of november 5th. i woke up earlier than usual, because i think i sensed that something was wrong. i sensed that i would be waking up into a world with just a little less hope. a world just a little more exhausted by the constant and ever underlying prospect of a complete loss of rights, of complete environmental disaster. 

i checked the electoral map, and of course my instinct was correct. i was silent, i silently reflected on my disappointment, my rage, my sadness. it wasn't that i was surprised. americans have done nothing to earn my trust in situations where human rights are on the line. 

myself and other leftists have started to sound like a broken record, repeating the horrors of who/what trump embodies. repeating the countless reasons why we cannot risk another trump presidency, why kamala wasn't ideal but we had to vote for her... etc. it feels like nothing matters, nothing gets through the thick and brainwashed skulls that aimlessly follow that man. what has happened to humanity? 

all i know is that now more than ever we must mobilize as a body of young people. there is work to be done and we must do it. 

to quote audre lorde:

"Do not be misled into passivity either by false security (they don't mean me) or by despair (there's nothing we can do). Each of us must find our work and do it."

this is all i will say about this for now. i've tired myself of talking about it all day, with everyone i come in contact with, with my grandparents, with my professors. but its important and we won't forget this feeling for the rest of our lives.