Written by Adeline J. Wells
It is difficult to put words to the weight that has, and forever will, define this day. A day that has been fought for, brought on by indignant men and women rabid to ravage the rights of millions, of generations.
It is a different sort of heartache and pain when you are aware that something is coming. We have had weeks to prepare for this day, to come to terms with it, to get appointments and plans in order. Weeks to fight, weeks to hide from the reality of the stripped precedent that would all too soon be forced upon us. Yet the sun still rose today, the gavel was struck, and knowing that those two things would occur did not make them any easier to bear when they did. We know that the sun will rise tomorrow as well, and we know that the ache, the fury, the heaviness that plagues our beings will still be here too. Ache and fury that will be regurgitated, picked apart across media platforms. It will be the topic of conversation, feuds, therapy sessions, opinion pieces; the list goes on. The dense heaviness we will carry with us long after this week; we will carry it with us long after the news and social media move on. We will carry it with us when the next agenda is pushed to diminish the rights of this nation’s marginalized while securing those for its powerful, its males, its wealthy, its white.
This is a heaviness that may one day be relieved after it has been channeled into resolute, relentless action. It has to be, should we ever want to create a world in which our daughters have the rights that our mothers and grandmothers had. Action to create meaningful, structural change will not be easy; it will require us to remain tenacious while being gentle with ourselves, caring for one another while fighting against a political agenda that does not care about us. Yet it must be done.
Change will never be implemented as long as we continue to allow this nation’s moral compass to be stunted, valuing profit and power over people. The blood of those people will never turn into milk and honey.
