My boys have been more concerned about this election than any other current event I can think of right now.  The person I stood for and my children championed wasn’t elected to run this country.  I woke up at 6 before the sun peaked above the hill that my bedroom window faces in the east and I wondered how to answer the questions I knew my boys would have.  I was over thinking it.  I decided the only approach was to come to them with Mom wisdom.  It sounded like a call to action and I’m about to Mom you all.

It’s not a time to despair and whine about an uncertain future.  My Trump supporter friends were more silent last night.  I won't try to imagine what they feel, but I know this transition is a challenge for many people and my advice is to do whatever it takes.  Get through it.  Cry through change if you need to, but don’t stay there. Sometimes the greatest transformations start with the darkest paths through the deepest valleys.  You must be willing to keep moving forward.

Failed marriages. . .   A career move you're afraid of. . . A new relationship that scares the crap out of you . . . A president elect that you really wish wasn't elected . . .

Move forward because there's nothing left behind you. You belong in this moment and can't hold onto the shredded past that fell apart on you.

I've explained how I felt about Donald Trump.  His title may justify respect based on the desires determined by a nation, but I can’t deny the way he has treated those he doesn't identify with.  I see him as a person that has been so hurt by what scares him, that he doesn’t even recognize when his hate is offensive.  What is worse is that the parts of him that are hurting are also hurting in the people I know and love that voted for him.  I'm certain there were women, Mexicans, Blacks, LGBTQIA, and Muslims that chose him over a woman that looked like the greater evil.

I told my boys we’re in a unique position.  I reminded them of the ways that people with special needs are like people in the LGBTQIA community. There are umbrellas of definition for the people who don't understand who they are because my Kid1 and Kid2 don't need a label to define who they are.  They just exist and that is enough. We are mixed race.  Black, Thai, Mexican, Caucasian, Choctaw Indian and Burmese . . . The list could probably go on. We are everything that our President Elect fears and distances himself from.  Our birthright is the capacity to be the change.

We get to stand in the authority of who we are and show up in love.  Who we are is a set of labels to other people and we get to show up to show out who we are in a way that matters to one person at a time.  In this way, I get to open eyes and I get to help others heal in the ways they are hurting.

As black men, you get to heal the fear that has killed innocent adults at the hand of frightened and angry police officers.

As women, we get to be powerful and confident and heal the expectation that a woman can't handle the art of adult survival without male assistance or approval.

As white men, you get to show the world what it is to not define your existence in terms of what has been because you are here now and this path that you carve is all you, Love.

As a Christian, you get to embrace and normalize the woman wearing a hijab because her God is not any more or less than yours.

As Muslims, you get to show the world who Allah calls you to be in your external expression of faith, the ways you really do hold and honor your women, and the way you care for those less fortunate.

The love I have as a woman that loves gay men and transgendered or gender fluid people can heal others that don't understand what it means to love unconditionally.  I get to hold hands on both sides of the bed and show you that we all love and hope and sleep the same.

If age is nothing but a turn on, why can't your kink be? If you are comfortable enough to claim it as your kink, is it really considered kink?

If we heal the pain that others have identified with . . . If we stop insulting our friends and relatives that made a choice they felt was the best option . . . If we accept that we are accountable to how we show up and reinforce prejudices and that our voice can heal others .  . We can diffuse the power of destruction that we have created in a world that was a vacuum and is still sucking away at life, searching for love.

Be.  Be love.  Be the change.