Dear Mr. President

Dear Mr. President,

I'm sure you are overwhelmed with a multitude of emotions and feelings as you prepare to depart from office. No doubt you have felt nostalgic as you recall the past 8 years. And I would guess, being a parent myself, you look toward your children and immediately feel grateful that they are of such quality character despite the obstacles thrown in your face, or hateful rhetoric slung at your family that you so graciously addressed. You're a human being, I'm sure it hurt on the inside. But your demeanor on the outside? Superhuman to say the least. I'm grateful for all you've done for our country, and acknowledge that your service has put significant stress in your life, in your relationships, and like all other presidents I've seen, you've got a lot more gray hair now. Like, a lot.

As the countdown to inauguration day comes closer, I feel the pit in my stomach growing bigger and bigger. You see, our country right now is in turmoil. You know that. The hatred has been stirred, and rather than the leader of the people attempting to unify, he continues to belittle, to demean, to verbally assault those that attempt to call out his wrong doings. Our next president has not yet taken his oath, and already I feel my heart begin to mourn. Mourn for the loss of a compassionate nation, mourn for the loss of perseverance in gaining equal rights for all people, and I mourn the loss of our future, my family's future. The heavy weight adds to it's intensity every time his twitter account goes crazy, or every time I hear about another appointed official with so little integrity, he should be marked as having debt in character or human decency. I mourn our nation. And the grieving feels so debilitating that I just sit here and cry. I've never experienced the grief of such a big concept--something so abstract. Certainly of a loved individual, but never something so intangible as the loss of the future that has not yet occurred. You see, even if things stay exactly the same as they are now, and our next president does not add any positive contribution to this nation, but only maintains, he has still wasted 4 years. And although I operate from a strengths-based perspective, I have never found anything more challenging, than to look to our future with reassurance or hope. You don't know me, so I think it's appropriate to tell you that I never put my whole hope or trust in a man. God is the only force that I feel fairly certain is deserving of my trust in it's entirety. But that doesn't mean that I am unfeeling when it comes to our nation. I cannot simply insert the phrase, "God is still on His throne" or "I put my hope in the Lord alone" and become blissfully ignorant to the events that unfold before my eyes. Those statements are true, for me, but what good is a statement by itself? Action in this case is so much more appropriate.

So I will fight. A person's natural response is either fight, flight or freeze, and I am intentionally choosing fight. I will fight for what is fair, what is just, what is foundational to our growth as a nation of social individuals. We are humanity together, and I believe that design to be perfectly constructed even though the humans in humanity screw it up so often. I will fight for the things I value, and not be passive by putting up with or ignoring the injustice that is stripping our nation of its dignity. I will fight.

But for right now, I feel it necessary to grieve. Because this is the reality, and not reality tv, although the two seem to be interchangeable currently. Grief is important to experience because it makes us stronger, it paves the way for resiliency, and damn it America will be resilient. We are one nation, under God, indivisible, and no one power-hungry, narcissist can make that not so. With liberty, and justice for all.

With great humility and gratitude,
Andrea