My activism takes up a large part of my life. From a young age, I felt like my rebellion was my own activism. The personal is political, after all. When I was a junior in high school, I helped my softball team revolt against our coach because he ordered us men's baseball pants, in gray. As if we didn’t have enough body image issues as it was, being teenage girls, our coach refused to understand the difference between men's and women's baseball pants. We felt like teenage gray whales.
Between me and my best friend, we helped our team get all black, and theoretically slimming, pants before our next away game. All of us got onto the bus with our sweatpants over our supposed-to-be-gray men's baseball pants. Before we took the field, we revealed the black pants, and I swear to you, he acted like we murdered the school mascot. We ended up ten-running the opposing team on their home field and chanted “look good, play good” to our coach in the post-game huddle.
Six years later, and I’m fighting for more than just my right to wear the pants I want to wear.
I cried the morning of November 9th, and almost every morning for weeks to follow because I knew that there was no way out if I gave up – but I was afraid that I couldn’t do it alone. While working on my undergrad, I spent some of my free time volunteering for a club on campus: VOX: Voices of Planned Parenthood. Even with a president in the White House that supported women’s rights, we still had to put up a fight with Congress. For years, I’ve been putting up a fight; fighting for my future, my friend’s futures and the future of this country. In November, I was struck with one of the biggest blows that is now the President of the United States.
How could this be the America that I love?
In months following that dreadful day I attempted to build an army out of everyone and anyone that was willing. An outpour of people showed their interest in getting involved; millions of people marched the day after that insipid inauguration, insisting that we will not be silenced – we will not go down without with ease and we will not go back in time. I tripled my time at my local Planned Parenthood and stayed up at night attempting to find us a way out. I watched a lot of "House of Cards."
The uncertainty worked as the most frightening force: What is he going to do next? How long is this going to last? When Mussolini’s fanboy started signing executive orders, more and more of me grew discouraged and it seemed as if more and more of the people around me were slipping off to the sidelines.
In the moments I felt the most desperate, I would get frustrated with everyone around me. Why weren’t they helping me? I know they care about this as much as I do! My friends weren’t showing up for the cause, for me. I felt alone and stood wavering on the edge, wondering how I was going to fight back without any reinforcements.
I had to stop feeling sorry for myself. I had to stop. I was focused too much on who wasn’t showing up when I could be getting just as much done with the people by my side. Rallying around those who still felt the same yearning for political normalcy as I did.
I am in charge of my activism only, and it took too long for me to realize that.
I was driving to the Washington State Capitol with three strangers in my car when I finally started to reconcile the many ways change in the political climate can dig into my day-to-day life. The personal is political, just as much as the political is personal. Before, I was taking it personal that my friends weren’t showing up – they weren’t fighting as hard as I was. When I stopped doing that, when I stopped thinking like that, I started to see the other people who were persisting as hard as I wanted to. I started to cover more ground and get even more involved with the work that needs to be done to make a change in a government where you can feel very, very small.
I started to separate my vision for this country from relationships, even though that can be one of the hardest things to manage. I opened up to the strangers in my car about the strains I’ve felt in my friendships and family relationships and learned that I wasn't the only one. We built a community among strangers in a matter of hours. They helped me understand that yes, the call to action is incredibly loud, but the way we react can be different. You can only be in charge of your own activism; you’re not alone in this fight. Focus on the fight for you, and you will make your mark.