A Month of Reflection: Day Six
Talk about a day that is begging us to fucking reflect a bit...I don't really know where to begin, but I was planning on talking about my big brother and that can still work.
It is the day that I kept telling myself I had to make it to. I am here.
It’s worse than I let myself imagine, and that’s unusual for me. To under worry about the future. I am a plan for the worst and hope for the best type of person through and through.
Yet here we are, at the unimaginable worst.
Donald Trump won by a landslide. The first convicted felon to be president. First (widely known) rapist. White supremacist. Sexist. Moron? There’s so many more words. And he beat out Kamala Harris by a landslide. Largely in part to white woman voting for him. Maybe that isn’t worth being said, I say it is; especially as one who did not.
It isn’t shock that he won, it’s the margins that keep making me feel uneasy. Before it was a challenge. Results took days, even then they needed to be recounted. I figured at the very least the would happen again, really I expected it to be worse than 2020. This is unprecedented. That word means less every time I see it.
I’ve been asked a lot how I feel and there isn’t much I can put into words yet. The best I can say is: I feel like I am suspended in jello. That is how foreign this world feels right now. How out of control I feel.
I am certain of one thing: we have to keep going.
Regardless of the outcome, our fight is the same. At the forefront being free Palestine, free Congo, free Sudan, free the Global South.
So how am I going to tie this into a reflective piece about my brother?
My brother is a good man. Like my father, like the man I married. He would never cast doubt about anybody’s right to their own autonomy. He would defend someone who was being bullied. He is a good man. That feels like a very rare thing lately.
Perhaps that sounds harsh, to define a man by his vote, by his political affiliation. Typically I would agree, however this wasn’t a political vote. This was a direct vote against women. Against their mothers, their wives, their daughters, female coworkers. A man willing to sign his name behind Donald J. Trump is a man willing to stand next to a sexual offender and defend that.
This is why those of us who experience sexual abuse don’t speak up. This is why we don’t tell our stories, because they’ll still get to be president.
My brother is a good man. He always has been.
A pain in my ass, duh. He’s my older brother. Older by 4 years. From as early as I can remember I wanted one thing from him, for him to think I was cool. That I was worth hanging out with. The best memories from growing up are the ones where my brother is involved. He is truly one of the funniest people alive. He’s also a fucking smart ass, so go forth with caution.
When we were young, like all of us millennials, Harry Potter was our favorite thing in the world. We would spend hours running around with sticks, casting spells. Setting up potions shops was always my favorite part. We had this tiny strip of woods behind out house. There was a tree that grew with two branches just begging to be shelves holding all my magical ingredients. We used acorns and stones for money. We would make the pool the Black Lake at night; recreating the famous Triwizard Cup scene, I was the mermaid of course.
My brother has always been one of the few people who cold match my imagination. That’s why I loved playing with him, and why it was so hard when he found a best friend, and got too old and too cool for his little sister. I can’t blame him, I was always too cool for my little sister, kidding Sarah I love you.
When Michael was a senior in high school and trying to decide what he wanted to do with his life he shocked us all by saying he was going to go to WestPoint. I had never heard of it then, it’s the U.S. Military Academy. Very prestigious and very hard to get into. He did though, because he’s smart. Like smart as hell. He forgot his calculator for his ACT and still got a 31. He busted his ass for all the other parts. Joined cross country, ran for and won class president. He nailed his Senate interview. And got the coveted appointment to the school.
He got through the miserable 4 years so that he could get his hands on that degree. Bonus was that it was free, flipped side was the military commitment afterwards. Something that isn’t particularly him and never was. He did it though, lucky for him he was able to work a rather easy job and get out a couple years early, retiring as a Captain.
It never went to his head though. He stayed level and human.
Then he got married and had a beautiful baby and decided it was time for law school. And he did that for three years, and had another child while he was at it. Now Michael Burke was a Captain and an esquire.
It still did not go to his head. He still did not lose himself in it. He stayed level and human.
I am so fucking grateful. I am so grateful because I know that on that path he walked there must have been temptation after temptation to be “a guy’s guy”, to do the “bros before hoes” thing. To be a disgusted pig head.
Instead he has been not only a good man, but a vocal good man. A man who is not afraid to stand up for women, because apparently we still need that. While we need that you best believe you good men out there need to stand up and be vocal too.
I am so glad that I got to grow up and watch him become a good man by following my dad’s example. I am so grateful that the man who raised me was a good man, because he’s a boomer. It could have gone either way. Because of them I was able to find a good man, because I knew they existed. They are rare though. More rare than I thought. I find myself being shocked by the audacity of men frequently, though it has been one of the most consistent parts of life as a woman in this country. That the men will surprise you by how low they can steep.
If you have a good man in your life, in any capacity, thank them. And then tell them they need to start having some really uncomfortable conversations. It may be ugly, but it’s real now. The battle has come, the time is now.
More over, if you are a woman or person who feels like they have less of a say in their own life now, you are not alone. You are not wrong. I was journaling this morning trying to figure out if I have been the one miscalculating wrong this whole time. I must be the one coming up short if so many others believe he is right. I even asked myself if I was capable of making decisions about my body. I tried so hard to, see it. To see the world through that teeny, tiny lens. I just could not make it work. There is no way to see beyond yourself with that perspective. We are not wrong. We are human. We have worth and value. We have rights and we need to defend them together.
In conclusion, I am fucking tired. I am pissed. I am sad. I am scared. But there isn’t time for that. It is November 6th and midterms are only two years away. I gotta figure out how to get on the ballot…
Thank you for being here and allowing me this space to share and reflect. It means more than you know. I am attaching some links at the bottom for you to check out. Some ways to make an impact in this world. We need to now more than ever.
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