Post-Election Day Horror Story.

I am terrified of horror films.  Always have been.   The last scary movie I ever saw was the re-make of “The Ring”, conned into it by a sly friend who told me it was a romantic comedy.  Believable right?  Apparently being bedridden the day after Election Day 2016 was the cure for my terror. 

I began this morning by reading article after article about how we failed, how we were failed, how we will be failed by our neighbors, our country, our future president.  I ended this morning watching American Horror Story, in tribute to our new beginning.  What I’ve discerned, amongst my fruitless attempts for health, is the health and sickness of this nation lies in hope.

Trite, I know, but it was hope that elected the first black President, and it was with hope to “Make America Great Again” that the Electoral College elected Donald Trump.  And though I may not agree with the man this antiquated system has elected as leader of the free world, it is with this American freedom that I am entitled to my opinion. 

Now is not the time to turn your back on the country.  Now is the time to face it.   Only in the light of day can we fight the truths that fuel hatred – this is the first of many spotlights. 

Now, the real battle has begun: education and conversation.  Two things Americans have not quite nailed yet.  Do your part to challenge, peacefully, the things you don’t agree with.  Teach others to aspire to more than the molds of reality television – who are paid to make you want, and feed your lack.  Follow your ego to its roots and understand that none of us are free from defenses that will upend progress if you let them.  Open your mind and do not infringe upon the rights of others – your beliefs are not ours, making them so will only divide us.  Cut out the malevolent ‘ours’’ and ‘us’’.  See the “other” as equal – no matter their view, their gender, their sex, their orientation, their health, their age or their color – and disagree with equanimity.  Neither you nor I is better than he, she, they or them.

It is the common trope of horror films to include the audience’s disbelief and omniscient perspective in the drama – when the victim runs up the stairs, when they try climbing through a stalled elevator shaft or an undersized doggy-door on a retractable garage - we all know it’s a terrible idea and we celebrate that if it were us, we’d do things differently.  We’d run outside.  We’d grab that fire stoker and fight back.   We would survive…but we’d have to be involved first.

Now we are.  Now is our chance.

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Make your choice: choose to lend a bigger hand to a nation that needs its people or choose to bridle your perspective and deafen your senses to the progress born of hard work.  Remember, without you we are no democracy.  Without you, this will be a true American Horror Story.