The Inauguration - My Feelings

I was lucky enough that it was a slow day at work and I was able to live stream most of the Presidential Inauguration on Wednesday morning. It’s been a strange couple of weeks and I have to admit that going into this morning, I wasn’t as excited as I should have been to see history being made. I work a block from the Tennessee State Capitol building and my first and foremost thought was about violent protests and if I were running the risk of being caught up in them. 

Once I was safely inside with the stream booted up, I was able to start processing some of what was happening and became emotional a few times. I got a message from a friend and responded letting her know what I was doing. She wrote back, “I just hope I can stop being afraid now.” I feel like that’s what a lot of the last several years, and especially this past year, have been like. A lot of fear and a lot of fear reactions.

I took a short, two-second video of my computer screen to put in my ‘one second a day’ diary. So the only photos I have are stills from this. I did make sure that both of them were in my short video.

When I watched Kamala Harris being presented for the first time, the correspondents’ chat commentary alongside the video pointed out that we were about to have our first woman vice president. Someone else commented that hopefully at some point the American people would have a chance to absorb that. And it’s true. So much sci-fi-dystopian movie plot crap has been going on that it’s been difficult to look back and take in the fact that we did take a step forward.

I’m sure almost every incumbent speaks of unity, but the various symbols of peace included throughout and the multiple calls for us to come together to heal, I think we’re different this time. Several people wore purple, an amalgamation of blue and red and also one of the colors of the suffragette movement. I remember watching Biden’s children and grandchildren walk in and thinking, “imagine if your grandfather were becoming president.” I watched Biden speak and thought about what a big job he had ahead of him. He addressed each and every huge problem, from equality to climate change, the pandemic to the disinformation and division. I was tired just thinking about it.

But he spoke calmly and confidently. He’s run for president three times, he clearly wants the job. And maybe he’s what we need right now. A steady, grandfatherly figure to usher our wounded nation out of the dark place that it’s in. He wasn’t my first choice, but I definitely backed him against what we had been dealing with. So far I haven’t been disappointed. I know this administration has a large hill to climb (hat tip Amanda Gorman, that poem, and her presentation of it, was amazing, it was a good day for those with speech impediments). I just hope that most of us will come together to move forward as a country and give these people a chance.

I feel calm today. I read in the news that the COVID task force has found that things were in worse shape than they were aware of due to the less than gracious transition. Still, I’m just happy that someone is actually handling it. They transparently said on the second day that they’re already behind, they didn’t try and tell us they were doing great and that this would be over soon. That in and of itself was refreshing. Anthony Fauci was sent to the World Health Organization Executive Board Meeting on day two. I feel great about that.

I know that mistakes will be made and I know that these next few years aren’t going to be easy either, but I want to take a minute to remember that some forward progress has been made. And progress is never easy. But, I do hope we can all give it a chance and lean in a little.