And Still I Rise......

The world as I know it is even more uncertain than ever before.  This past week has not only been heartbreaking for me and the rest of the country that feels as I do, but it has also been filled with awareness that the country I have loved and lived in for the past 30 years, is a country that I don't even know as much as I thought I did.

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I don't care that people voted the way they did and that the outcome is what it is.   It wasn't shocking or even surprising to me, because everyone has their right to vote for whoever they want.  Whether it was because they felt 100% certain that he was the better candidate or that they just hated the other much more, it doesn't really matter.  The facts are the facts, the truth is the truth, and even with all of that people still voted the way they did.

No one can change that, it is what it is, and no matter how much I try to understand or wrap my head around it, doing so is pointless.

But what I will do is this.  I will continue to love as deeply as I do, forgive those who don't even have the courage to ask for it, hope like there is no tomorrow, and be kind.  Where there is hate, there is always love.  Where there is ignorance, there is always acceptance.  And where there is injustice, there is always justice.  That is the silver lining and the silver lining I try to find in all things that don't make sense.

I don't know what our country will become of in these next four years, much less these next months.  There are millions of people who are angry, hurting, and devastated, and then millions who are happy and thrilled.  There is no in between, only one side vs. the other, and I think more than anything that is what breaks my heart more.

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Everywhere I turn and in everything I see, hear, and read, there is this voice of hatred that scares the shit out of me.  I wish so much that everyone could see it as simply as it is, that a better world, a better country, is one where we can ALL come together and UNITE, instead of one where we do all we can to divide.

At the end of the day I'm really just lucky to be alive, to be in love with my absolute most favorite person on earth, to have the best family on the planet, a wonderful job, working lungs, a beating heart, all my limbs and senses, and a home that is only filled with positivity, joy, love, and laughter.

And in the words of Maya Angelou....may we all still rise.

Love and light,
Kim

Still I Rise

Maya Angelou, 1928-2014

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.