Gray Gardens

Everyday I wake up in Donald Trump's America and prepare myself for the news. It takes all of my courage and backbone to move forward through my anxiety and depression and face the day. Being on the West Coast means that by the time I get up, our President has already done two, maybe three, heartbreaking and horrifying things.

I feel like I've got my own armor now. I put it on as soon as my foot hits the floor of the bedroom and I don't take it off until I'm back in bed at night.

The world looks different now. Being outside, things have changed. Everything looks grayer. Things seem bleaker. The air is colder.

The reality of living this life is so much worse than the awful I thought it would be. As soon as the tide turns, everything becomes desolate. I don't have to wait to see the gestapo in order to feel them coming.

This is an America that I never thought I'd live in but I realize now that was naive. I realize now that I was seeing the world through my own blinders, my own white privilege. Of course we wound up here, how could we not? The freedom that I've so easily taken for granted hasn't ever been given out to all of our people. And our own hypocrisy is coming for us now.

It's still not fair though. Not all of us deserve this fate. There are people who have been standing up for themselves and for others for lifetimes and the air is just as polluted for them as it is for me.

There's a part of me that knows the happiness I felt just last year is something that I'll never get back again. You can't reach this stage and go back, ever. Once you see this version of the world, you never come clean. And knowing that I could've, I should've, done more in my lifetime is something that I'll never forget.

I look around and things that are supposed to be green are gray. Skies that are supposed to be sunny, are overcast. Clouds that are supposed to be light are dark. Our world has become a gray garden. The colors on our TVs are so much brighter now than the ones outside.

In order to see the best of humanity we find we have to keep staring at screens, desperate to find voices as vivid as our own and hearts that still know the brilliance and beauty of color.

Black Lives Matter

Women's Rights are Human Rights

Today, I am Muslim

Science is Real

No Human is Illegal

Love is Love

Brown Lives Matter

No H8

Kindness is Everything

#NoBanNoWall

Climate Change is not a Conspiracy

Let Freedom Ring

Give Peace a Chance