I started this post on election day. What a day for this prompt, right? What is this bizarro timeline we’re living in? I have a lot to say about this topic, but for now I’ll just finish what I started writing on election day.

November 6: My thoughts are all over the place as I sit here typing. Election results are in and it did not go the way I’d hoped. I am struggling to come to terms with that. I want to believe that everything will be okay and that the country will get back on track in my lifetime, but it’s hard to see that right now. So bear with me while I fill the page with my thoughts.

I don’t know if it’s young people in general or just my kid, but the number of times I am asked about the past is daunting. Every time she’s stressed about something happening in the world, she asks me how it feels to have lived through so many major historical events. It’s fucking stressful, that’s what it’s like. But we carry on because we have no other choice. We carry on, feeling like we have no place in the world while doing our best to make that place a reality.

I was in high school when the Columbine shooting happened. I remember clear backpacks and stricter dress codes targeting the fashion choices of my fellow weird kids. Trench coats were strictly off limits. I had just started college when 9/11 happened. Everyone my age remembers where they were when they heard the news. We all remember the disbelief and despair when the second tower went down. And we all know people who went to war and some who didn’t return. We’ve witnessed countless instances of gun violence. We helped elect the country’s first black president. We tried to help elect the country’s first woman president a few times, but apparently the country is not ready for that yet. We’ve seen so much progress in terms of human rights and representation and now we’re watching the tail end of a dying generation of people trying to roll all that back. TFG’s second term will probably be one of those defining moments in my kid’s life. TFG’s first term and the pandemic will be another.

So what major historical events do I remember? Too many. It never fucking ends.