What does change look like? To be seeing things from another perspective than the one that I had previously held onto for so long? Minor viewpoints, smaller ways of opening through the cracks. Vivid colors and changing angles to come out looking at the ways life has begun to restart, and not in the way that it once was.

I’ve grown tired of the way we spend our time, focused on the “other”. I’ve been angry that the differences that divide us are the ones that keep us from being open to what possibilities can connect us. Confirmation bias has gotten us too far aligned on opposing sides of the spectrum, filled with emotions of familiarity and unable to see the whole of the horizon. It feels good to hear our own thoughts and feelings echoed back to us. Relishing in the belief that the world is built by our reality. And then an earthquake hits, one of magnitude, and the pieces on the mantel must fall. The frame photos and art go crooked. It can’t be like this anymore. Building our houses upon shaky ground while assuming that the person right next door is living the same way I am as we breathe the same air.

Now is not the time for us to believe that things will be “normal” ever again. What was normal about the way we were living? The “other” was our neighbor, was the immigrant, was the culture we didn’t understand and the homeless man sleeping under the bridge. How does classifying them as anything other than a sentient being support our overall humanity? How does it work off the foundations that made the United States great in the first place? Our differences make us unique but also make us stronger together. 

I’m tired of the heavy and accepted weights we’ve shackled onto ourselves. We are not helpless. We are not useless. We are nothing if not kind, compassionate, and intelligent, building upon these societal handshakes, making us better as one collaborative community. 

What good might it do for us to assume the worst in another? What good is it going to do to die on the hill, waving a flag of superiority and nationalism when we can’t even take care of our own people? We don’t see the pain and suffering of the person next door. We turn our heads away and our noses up at those who tent out in the cement jungle, carrying their lives on their backs. Who are we to assume we are better than the next? 

We’ve closed our doors and our hearts on one another. We’ve stopped loving from a place of vulnerability because we are aggravated by the people around us who don’t think exactly the same way we do. And instead of finding a way to have a conversation, to bridge the gap and invite them in, we wrinkle our noses and cross our arms over our chest, dismissing them as naive, uneducated, or greedy. There is fear. There is a survival mentality that percolates in the afternoon coffee urn and dyes our mouths and our souls black. 

I would rather turn in. I cry late in the night and in the morning hours, fortunate in the sheets, protected by the walls, blessed with an education and my background and my skin color. I cry for the state of our society and for the planet. The sorrow that I feel courses through my blood as I wonder how I can stand on my own two feet, projecting my voice up and out at the issues of our time. 

Privileged. And I wonder if I don’t speak up, am I complicit in the actions? Looking in the mirror and the answer has to be yes.

What must one do? When are we going to change? I aim for justice and for truth, yet my words fall onto ears of those who think like me. 

I am concerned. I am saddened by the state of the world. I wait around, thinking that there will be a shift and that taking on the larger beast of burden is not my job. Perhaps it is best left up to someone else with the skills and knowledge, dismissing the tears that roll down my face and the heaviness that sits in the pit of my stomach. There must be fires, there must be pain. Why these things are needed to spark change concerns me just as much, though it seems that our words aren’t working anymore. It is senseless. There is rage. I see the frustration with peaceful rule following and what it has done – now is the time for continued intensity. To not let up.

Where do we go from here? How can we overturn the exhaustive normalcies that we’ve created in our lives so that we can rise from the ashes more whole, changed from the experience, not to return to it again? No more of these murders. No more power shifts that disarm one individual for the thrill of another. 

We cannot go on in this manner any longer. I’m tired of the narrative that repeats itself like a broken record. The same sad song spoken in a raspy voice, the smoke that has filled bars and now sits on our chests. The time for action is now. The time to hold my tongue has lasted much too long. Because my choices make a difference and I choose to say something. 

The sun sets on what was so that space can be made and held for everyone. So I will listen, I will sit in silence and make room for the uncomfortability that will come with the changes.