Taken in NYC earlier this summer.
It’s Thursday, which means it’s #throwbackthursday, which means a large number of us have already scoured our camera rolls and old Facebook albums in search of memories worth posting. Of happier times. Likely tanner, too—but nonetheless, of better days.
It’s a method of coping. Navel-gazing, sure, but for the millennials looking back to their childhood, teenage-dom, or the day they cast their first vote in the poll [for Barack Obama], it’s all a bitter reminder of what naiveté tasted like and what progress could, might was so close to looking like.
And here we are, faced with everything, stuck in a reality more than half of us didn’t choose and shouldn’t exist in 2017, but does. Some of us are jaded; it was there all along, the crack in a faulty foundation. Some of us are awakened, woke. Others are okay with the status quo.
Resist.
Open your eyes. Get political. Kristen Tea said it best (found via @steph_shep):
“I want my friends to understand that ‘staying out of politics’ or being ‘sick of politics’ is privilege in action. Your privilege allows you to live a non-political existence. Your wealth, your race, your abilities or gender allows you to live a life in which you likely will not be a target of bigotry, attacks, deportation, or genocide. You don’t want to get political, you don’t want to fight because your life and safety are not at stake.
It is hard and exhausting to bring up issues of oppression (a.k.a. ‘get political’). The fighting is tiring. I get it. Self-care is essential. But if you find politics annoying and you just want everyone to be nice, please know that people are literally fighting for their lives and safety. You might not see it, but that’s what privilege is.”
This is the truth. All that has and is happening in this world—in this country we claim is good and free and open-minded—is real.
I promised love and hope in the title; it’s coming, Truth bombs must always be thrown first.
With that in mind, tell me: What things made you smile or send an uninhibited “bahahaha” today? Save them in your Notes app or write them down in your bullet journal, because no matter how ugly the world is, there are moments of bliss to be grateful for. I’ll tell you mine: how my mom’s texts are 90% emojis; my daily, 7:30 a.m. sharp wake-up call from my dad (which he manages to do even when he’s overseas in Taiwan despite the fact that I’m 25 and out of my parent’s house); the munching monster sounds my man makes before he nibbles my neck to get me to crack a smile; waking up to gorgeous sun; a text from DHL saying I have a delivery at my door; finally listening to Martha Stewart’s Q&A from Cherry Bombe’s Jubilee last year.
My point is, there’s people that make this world ugly. The universe itself is beautiful—and that’s reason enough to keeping fighting. That is your hope for being, for resisting.
Whatever you’re feeling right now, feel it. (Else, what are you? Not human. Apathy is death.) All this you’re feeling is valid. You are valid. Whatever fear, anger, disgust, despair you’re experiencing—you are not alone. Find the others. Seek them out and create your tribe. There is strength in numbers. There is unity in voices. There is power in conversation, in education.
There is change in action.
. . .
Love,
Kim
Your turn. Thoughts?