I'm going to be honest- I'm scared.

Not that I've been living comfortably knowing that I don't live as fearlessly and having the entire world readily available at my fingertips as the men in my life, but I was used to having my rights threatened.

The rich, old, straight, white men running my government have been acting only for themselves my entire life, and the lives of women before mine, and before theirs. What I can do with my body and who I'm allowed to love have never truly felt like a decision I could actually make, those being just two of the many examples I could name, but for the sake of flow and my sanity, I will refrain from naming them all.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the woman that made it possible for women to set up a bank accountwithout a man's co-signature for Christ's sake, last wish was to wait to be replaced by a new president, aka until at least after the election this November. Waiting is not an uncommon practice, the Republican in charge of this decision last time had president Obama wait, no biggie, seems fair. But no, this absolute powerhouse of a woman's final wish was to replace her seat after this election is being blatantly overlooked by the same man that thought it best to wait until after a democrat president was out of office. Absolutely disgusting, my skin just crawls thinking about the amount of disrespect. But of course, he is a man after all, so what did RBG do for him?

Almost all of the rights I feel safe knowing I can exercise today are from the work of RBG

With the balanced tipped in the Supreme Court like this, and with one less woman sitting in one of the highest chairs of the country, I'm truly scared. Scared that if my life is on the line one day when I'm ready to have a family and that the life growing inside me may kill me, that that life will be valued over mine. And we would both die. Or that I'm not ready to start a family and every month I'm knocked down for an entire week (which adds up to three months of the entire year) ,that I will not be allowed access to healthcare and medicine to help.

I feel that the rights of my friends in the LGBTQ+ community are threatened enough as it is, but I'm afraid that with a considerable conservative majority in the Supreme Court, the separation of church and state will be ignored once again, also blatantly ignoring the reason why America was founded in the first place.

I feel that all the work the Black Lives Matter movement and its supporters have been putting in to make a change will continue to lose momentum and ultimately force those that have spoken out back into silence.

I feel that we will all learn pretty soon that our planet has endured irreparable damage, and that we will see the world come to an end in my lifetime.

But mostly, as I am a woman, I feel that I will feel less in control of my life than I already do and I know I'm not alone

We have to speak up. We have to use our voices, our minds, our resources, and support women and other marginalized groups right now.

I never thought I'd see my country take so many steps backward. I hoped we were better than this, but unfortunately, I knew better otherwise.