••election day thoughts••

it's 12:07am on Tuesday, November 5th 2024. election day. as a writer and documentarian in my own right, i dunno, there's weight to these hours. i wish it would stop being "historical."

here's my election day plan. at 10:20am, i'm going to wake up, regardless of when i get to sleep. and then from 11a-12pm, as i do every Tuesday, i'm going to sit on my green velvet couch and do emdr therapy. & then, because emdr therapy always wipes me out, i'm going to set my alarms, take a nap, and wake up at 3. now i don't normally have therapy twice in one day but this week, my regular therapist whom i've been seeing for the past 5 years is going out of town and my regularly scheduled session has been rescheduled to...you guessed it—today, Tuesday at 5:30pm. if it weren't an election year, if i weren't still dealing with the aftermath of family trauma, if i were doing better mentally, if reprocessing memories from the time i was an infant in between homes didn't make me want to curl up into a ball and silently sob for hours on end, if i weren't so worried, if i didn't miss my brother's kids so fucking much, i wouldn't need that extra session.

but everything hurts in ways it didn't used to & i am doing everything i can to find relief. so at 6:30pm, instead of turning on the election night coverage, i will give myself 10 minutes to breathe before i go to the kitchen and join my parents and visiting aunt for dinner, keeping the option of retreating early open. should dinner become unbearable, i will excuse myself from the table, grab a couple of ciders from the fridge, and hide in my room until the evening is over. 

regardless of what happens, i want to remember this fear. i want to remember how this anxiety and restlessness prompted me to preemptively buy pepper spray for myself and my sister because i am so scared of what might happen this time. no proximity to whiteness can keep us safe. no proximity to privilege will keep us safe. regardless of what happens, i will remember this fear. i will remember the numbness and the way my voice disappeared and the way i held my body as tightly as i could stand. 

it is 3:47am on election day in the United States and i am hopequesting until i fall asleep.