Too Close

I have generally avoided writing about current events here, but I am finding it hard this time to remain outside of events. I wondered why--haven't there been countless other events that warranted my attention? Haven't there been numerous other days and weeks that called for my opinion?

There probably have been. But as I think back to this week, which changed as I watched the vote counts and electoral map emerge, what I realize is that while the numbers may have been close, the effects of the outcome are even closer--too close not to write about them.

I am too close to too many people from all kinds of backgrounds not to worry about their futures and how they will be treated in school, on the street and subway, and by new policies.

I am too close to too many in the LGBT community not to worry that the lives they have made will be ripped apart.

I am too close to too many who have stood up against injustice and hate not to worry that all the work they have done will be undone.

I am too close to too many groups who have been persecuted in the past not to worry that we are headed back to a time when persecution was considered okay.

I am too close to too many who believed that love and inclusion and human rights would prevail not to speak up and thank them for what they did on my behalf and on others'.

I am too close to too many who will stand on protest lines not to recognize that what they are standing for affects me and so many people I love.

I am too close to all of it not to cry about what we have lost and try to believe we can get it back.

So, I guess that is how current events have found their way in--because sometimes, events come far too close to be ignored. When they are so close that each day, you hear them and feel them and see them in the faces of the people around you, it's just not possible to write around them. And maybe, just maybe, I will have come close enough to help--at least a little.