God Bless These 20somethings
Normal in Amerikkka looks like the CDC lowering the mandatory quarantine days to 5 at the request of Delta airlines in order to ensure their workforce remains strong and undisrupted. Normal in Amerikkka looks like restarting student loans in the middle of a global pandemic after they were paused because of people's inability to pay them as a result of the pandemic. Normal in Amerikkka looks like telling us it's too dangerous to visit with our families for Christmas because of COVID-19, but encouraging us to go to work despite it.
The melting pot of Amerikkka is as hypocritical, money-hungry, and exploitative as it's ever been. As I look up and around at the masses pressed to get back to what's normal, I have to question what that normalcy really means for us all.
What does it mean for me as a queer black woman to fit back into Amerikkka's normal? I don't know what I personally expected from Joe and Kamala, but it wasn't this.
It wasn't Kyle Rittenhouse being trotted around the country on a glorified world tour celebration of racism after murdering two people in cold blood during a protest last year in Wisconsin, while Breonna Taylor still has no justice. While Sandra Bland still has no justice. While countless of my unnamed and unpublicized brothers and sisters have no justice. My heart is crying for revolution, but my soul is tired - centuries of watching your people brutalized, victimized, and commodified will do that to you. Is this our normal? It feels like it.
And NO ONE is talking about the Ghislaine Maxwell trial and the involvement of dozens of our political leaders from all over the country. Kaepernick takes a knee for our rights and every one has a think piece to share on why he was wrong for doing so but when our justice system is filled with pedophiles and sex traffickers we're only met with silence. Ignorance is bliss here in the land of the not-really-but-it-sounds-good-so-we-call-it free.
The more I think about it, the more and more I realize how fucked up our "normal" is. In my younger years, thinking about these truths would have debilitated and overwhelmed me, sending me spiraling into depression or an anxiety attack. But with growth and a new year comes new habits and new lenses with which to view the world. I've decided that I will no longer let the evil that exists in the world rot my perspective of life's capacity to be beautiful.
I've decided that one of my New Year's resolutions will be a renewed commitment to radical acceptance.
Radical acceptance means choosing to take life as it is instead of ruminating on what we have no control over or resisting what we cannot change.
It is ignoring the urge to hold on to what is good and fight what is bad.
It is the realization that the good and bad of life will ebb and flow and that is how we maintain balance.
Things will not always be bad and that is okay. Things will not always be good and that is also okay.
Radical acceptance has allowed me to simply exist, guiltlessly, while chaos is inevitably erupting all around me - and I'm all the better for it.
*My* new normal is radical acceptance with an abundance of self love and actively manifesting the reality I want to be a part of.
Racism, exploitation, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, misogynoir, and poverty all seem to be inherent and inalienable parts of our society. To me, this means I have the opportunity to put everything opposite of these hateful norms into the world.
I can lead with love, as corny as it may sound, I can become love and all the energy I exude will ripple out into the universe. Radical acceptance assures me that although I may not be able to change the world, I can directly and positively impact the people I come in contact with - changing MY world for the better.
Who am I to ask for a better "normal" than that?
If you feel inclined, comment what new habits you're manifesting as your new normal in 2022.