Where My Sense of Dread Is Gone
I got up this morning, January 21st, 2021, without that sense of dread I’d felt every morning since November 2016.
I didn’t have to ask my husband, who gets up earlier than I do, “What stupid thing has the President done now?” And by “stupid” I mean ignorant, illegal, hateful, spiteful, or cruel, just to name a few.
Instead, I got up to the news that the new President has rejoined the U.S.A. to the world community by reentering us in the W.H.O. and the Paris Climate accords. Environment killing laws/policies have been reversed. Minority oppressing policies have been cancelled. The reorganization of the Federal task force to combat Covid was completed. The list goes on and on and that was just on the 20th. I hear that today he’s making good on his election promises to sign more executive orders to try and undo the mess that the previous president had made.
How nice to not have to be on high alert, my stomach churning over every ignorant, white-supremacist utterance. How relaxing it is to know that a law isn’t going to be broken by the President or his children today, or another section of the Constitution destroyed. What a relief to know that I no longer have to be prepared for every sentence uttered by the President to be a lie that I have to parse out. A great burden has been lifted.
I know that the institutions that help govern us are no longer going to be run by a bunch of unfit boot-licking donors or cronies. I no longer have to worry that the people in charge are going to be working to destroy our republic and put an oligarchy in its place. No need to be concerned that who you know is more important than the law. An era of information and not lies has already begun as the White House Press Secretary has held the first press conference of the new administration and is planning to have one each day, providing the press the opportunity to ask real questions without having to kow-tow in subservience to a thin-skinned cry-baby.
Many people were filling blogs, vlogs, and social media with their relief on the 20th. But while I, too, celebrated on the 20th, today is the day I really feel the change. Today is the day I feel the relief. Today is the day my stomach has stopped churning. Today is the start of a new administration, one that works for all the citizens of this country. Today is the day I can finally breathe.
