Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/31582586@N03/3033203245/

As inauguration day approaches, my body is betraying the fear I am carrying. I wonder if I am faking it well enough in front of my children.

I watched the full video of the press conference with the President-elect on Wednesday and started weeping. I still cannot believe that this person is going to be our President. If you sympathize with me, you don’t need me to enumerate all the concerns. If you don’t agree with me, probably nothing I write is going to sway you to see things from my perspective, so I’m not going to waste my time trying to convince you that the next four years will be nothing short of interesting.

To add to my agita, I have recently felt a call to speak up for legal abortions. Yes, I believe that abortions kill babies. It makes me so sad to think of all the children that were not born. However, I cannot ever advocate for a reversal of Roe vs. Wade because I truly believe that legal abortions save women’s lives. It is hard for me to speak up about my beliefs because I am a Believer. I imagine that God had plans for those children to live or the pregnancies wouldn’t have happened. I know I am alienating good people who had no cause to dislike me up until know, and that makes me incredibly sad. And, I LOVE BIRTH. How could this topic not be difficult for me?

In short, I am a ball of emotions on an incredibly short fuse.

As I sat trying to process everything roiling around inside me this morning, I started with gratitude.  Thankful that despite the turmoil I have felt inside over the last week, Crazy Mama has stayed on vacation. While admittedly, I got a little louder than I like to be), it wasn’t yelling.  I’m chalking that noise up to ovulation and the fact that I am sad that there are no more babies for our home after seeing tons of babies at our class reunions and holiday party.

The gratitude is this: I am doing this Peaceful Mama thing the way I want to. I am filling up my reserves with affirmations every morning. When I feel myself at a boiling point, I close my eyes. I take my deep breaths. It’s not my absolute best, and still I can be thankful for where I am right now.

I am also inspired to action. What can be done? What is one small thing I can do to effect change?

Number one:
Share THIS document I put together when I had the privilege of hearing Jon Kyl speak several years ago. Daddy Bruss and I sure miss this honorable statesman.  Senator Kyl encouraged us that yes, we can make a difference when we gather up a group of friends and encourage them to light up the phones, emails, and fax machines with messages that state our position clearly and succinctly.

Number two:
Instead of saying that I support legal abortion, take the next step and research ways to decrease the need for abortion. As a dear friend suggested, it probably means providing for more services for women who would be inclined to abort due to lack of support. So on my list of things to do is to get more involved with those organizations and do my part by volunteering. If even one life is saved because a mother feels supported enough to carry her pregnancy to term, then it is one small difference for which I can be thankful.

Number three:
Take heart and courage from the brave souls in the front lines of social change – the teachers who are shaping the minds of our future for a few hours a day. While they can’t single-handedly undo any messages of hate and otherness that students are hearing at home, they can create a safe space in their classrooms and speak out with words of love instead of the words of division that we keep hearing when we turn on the news and see the state of our nation and the words of the President elect.

Fingers crossed that I will be granted permission to share some images that one of our students is going to be posting in her high school classroom (red tape: the work is a product of a peer group grant). When she shared the images and the statements of acceptance with me this morning, I started weeping again. In gratitude this time, because I know that she is not alone in feeling like this. There are other people who see people who look like me and empathize with the fear I live with daily for our children and myself, and anyone who looks “Mexican” or “Muslim” or “Gay” or “Disabled” or any “Other”. There are a cadre of teachers who GET THIS and will make their classrooms safe havens for all students, not just the ones who fit the prevailing version of “normal”.

We cannot accept the divisiveness that the President-elect campaigned on as our new normal. Today is not just a day off from school or dealing with the inconvenience that the banks are closed. On Martin Luther King Day (heck, really anytime!), I implore you to take a minute to talk to your children about Civil Rights and why we cannot allow history to repeat itself.

Here are three resources to explore:
Scholastic Lesson Plan https://goo.gl/smjYV2
The Leadership Conference https://goo.gl/U5R2Wa
PBS https://goo.gl/1WFdsd

Here’s hoping that this processing will help my stomach settle down so that I can stop running to the bathroom every hour of the day.  I am going to focus on gratitude – we are not alone. We have allies. We can find a way to bear with the next four years.