diana cowgill

I’ve been lying about my age for years, and don’t ever plan on stopping. I’m 23, going on 23, and the pattern looks to be holding steady. It’s a lie I revel in telling because it makes me feel like a cheeky woman,and a lady ought to enjoy that option if she wishes.

Another lie, this one I’m not so fond of, is that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. This post flirts with being political, but don’t worry, it pulls back before things get dodgy.

The Tangerine Dream is taking over in a few weeks, and people are very upset. I live in Los Angeles, so it seems like people are only upset, but of course that’s not the case. Some are happy, some are (actually) packing for Nova Scotia, but to a person we are all bracing for what’s next. What will Trumpunzel do? How will the citizenry react? Will we turn on each other? Will the markets crash? What what what can we expect?

And I haven’t the foggiest what wild’n’crazy scrapes The People or The Government will get into, but I do know that through it all, we as individuals have the choice to be decent.

That’s the thing that sets us apart, right? Makes us human? We have free will. We have the option to be kind. To be bigger. To ask questions and behave compassionately. And I hope that we take that option and run with it. 

I voted for Hillary. My husband voted for a dog. We are most certainly a blue leaning family. But, we know a lot of people that aren’t. There are a lot of orange party voters who we have known and cared for our whole lives, and who are not different than they were before the election, or even much unlike us. We simply came to different conclusions about things, and voted based on that.

The truth is, we’ve just lived our own 23 years. Seen things, been changed by things, realized different goals and chased dreams. And you know what? It’s alright. We’re all okay. We’re free to explore what matters to us. And, I’m saying this proactively and retroactively, if someone in politics does something awful, it doesn’t automatically mean that the individuals who voted for them are complicit in that sin. We have to give each other leeway on that.

I think we’re too us and them-y right now as a country. You do this and you’re A MONSTER! You do this and you’re a FEMI-MONSTER! That’s trendy, overly simplistic, dishonest garbage. There are plenty of bad people, but they don’t clump together by election district or identify themselves by which animal they pin to their lapel.

We have to stop labeling each other as bad or evil and writing people off so easily. Go read To Kill a Mockingbird. Try on some different shoes. Again, we all make our choices based on the life we’ve lived. Allow that. Respect that people are different from you, a fact that doesn’t put you above them.

This isn’t political. I just know that acting reasonably and from a place of compassion rather than angry hysterics is a good thing for everyone. And if things do blow sideways? The more united people are, the stronger.