I Choose Love

In the past 24 hours, I have felt a wide range of emotions—excitement, anxiety, confusion, anger, sadness, and even fear. I have spent all day trying to understand how we could have elected a man like Donald Trump as our President, and I’m still not sure that I’ve accepted this fact. I am not able to understand how we have let hate into our lives and take over the love we all have in our hearts.

In this post, there will be no name-calling, I will not disrespect those who have chosen this fate for our nation, but I will try to make those people understand why, right here and right now, this fate terrifies me.

First, let me say that I have been conflicted this entire election. As a young adult who was getting the chance to vote for the first time, I was eager to finally be able to vote for a change in our country. However, rather than the respectable, exciting election I was expecting, I witnessed a controversial, hateful election that was painful to watch. This was incredibly disappointing and my excitement for this election slowly dwindled. Although both candidates had serious flaws, in the end I stood by the candidate that I thought had the best vision for America. I voted for someone who believes that the American dream is “big enough for everyone — for people of all races and religions, for men and women, for immigrants, for LGBT people, and people with disabilities.” I chose to not vote for a man who encouraged hatred and fighting throughout his campaign, a man who openly speaks of women like they are nothing more than a physical item. I chose to not vote for hate, but for love and equality.

Unfortunately, this election did not end the way I had hoped it would, the way many of us always thought it would. I think the hardest part is that I have friends and family who are scared to death of what this means for their future, and I am afraid too. I have friends whose family immigrated to America, who fear that their family will be separated. I have friends AND family  who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community that fear their rights will be taken away from them. As a woman, I fear that my rights will once again be diminished to close to nothing while Donald Trump is in office. I don’t need to justify these fears, Donald Trump’s words and actions are reason enough for us to feel this way. However, we will not let this fear undermine us and keep us quiet, we will use this fear to bring us back together. When faced with adversity, we fight until we have no fight left in us, and I know that this is exactly what we will do. We will continue to choose and fight for what we know is right, we will continue to choose love over hate.

“And we’ll rise up

High like the waves

We’ll rise up

In spite of the ache

We’ll rise up

And we’ll do it a thousand times again”

-Andra Day, Rise Up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNKu1uNBVkU