05/08/2026
All I’ve had in my head lately is Samwise.
I keep thinking about that moment in the books that I grew up reading where everything is ruined, the road is too long, the evil is too big and everything seems so incredibly overwhelming. The world they knew is already gone in ways they can never fully undo and there is no clean victory waiting where everyone gets to go home untouched. There is only the choice: to keep going anyway.
That is where a lot of us are right now. We're in another pointless war and we can't afford basics to live let alone the small luxuries that make life enjoyable. Small businesses are closing left and right (of course they are, even the billion dollar businesses are restructuring or going bankrupt when people cannot even put gas in their car, let alone eat out at a restaurant). Citizens are being murdered and kidnapped by ICE. Anti-trans legislation keeps spreading like rot state by state. SCOTUS keeps carving away protections that people fought, bled, marched, organized, and died for. Voting rights, bodily autonomy, q***r safety, basic survival for disabled people, immigrants, poor people, Black and brown communities, trans people, all of it feels like it is being dragged back into the same old machinery that we've defeated before, haven't we? No? No, of course not.
And I know people are tired. I’m tired too. Y'all, I'm SO tired.
I am tired of having to explain my humanity to people and I am tired of watching people debate whether people like me should be allowed to exist in public. I am tired of every election feeling like a hostage situation where we're in damage control and having to choose "the lesser of two evils". I am tired of people acting shocked when systems built to protect power continue protecting power (they never thought the leopards would eat THEIR face, after all).
But I keep coming back to the same thing again and again: We are not the first people to live through dark times. We are not the first people to look at the world and wonder how the hell it is supposed to become livable again after so much damage has already been done. We are not the first people to be scared, furious, grieving, exhausted, and still somehow asked to keep moving.
And people before us DID keep moving.
Not because they were never afraid and not because they were pure or perfect or endlessly hopeful. They kept moving because someone had to carry the light forward even if their hands were shaking while holding the lantern.
That is what community is for. That's the BEAUTY of our community, isn't it? We hold the line where and when we can. We protect each other where we can. We feed people, share resources, and show up to school board meetings and protests and courtrooms and city councils. We help people get IDs, meds, rides, housing, paperwork, groceries, legal aid, safe places to sleep. We tell the truth when the truth is dangerous and we refuse to let them make us ashamed of surviving.
Some days the brave thing is organizing.
Some days the brave thing is answering a scared kid’s message.
Some days the brave thing is taking your meds, drinking water, and staying alive long enough to see tomorrow.
There is good in this world. I believe that. I have to. I see it in q***r elders who survived worse than this. I see it in trans kids who still laugh too loudly in public. I see it in every person who refuses to let cruelty be the only language this country speaks. I see it in my kid's face and his kindness. I see it when we pass around the same last $20 from cashapp to cashapp to keep our loved ones fed. I see it because I look for it. Mr. Rogers said look for the helpers, didn't he?
So I will be one of the helpers people look to. I don’t feel optimistic in some easy, shiny way. In fact, most days, it is a struggle to keep schlepping forward and to put one foot in front of the other.
But I am holding on.
To us. To each other. To the stubborn, furious, beautiful fact that we are still here.
And that is worth fighting for, right?
