2016. A time to rebuild your relationships.

I’ll never forget the beginning of my journey to centrism. I was 12. Christmas Eve was an enormous event in our home, and after the celebration of family, there was the traditional political debate that turned into screaming and yelling. My immediate family was cast as the role of the conservatives. They taught us that liberals were lazy and violent. My grandparents, aunts, and uncles…well, they were the liberals. They were politically active in their communities with a vast experience in different cultures, beliefs, and ideals. We were taught at a young age that liberals were the biggest threat to our freedom, and that there was never a good reason to be a liberal. Unless you were lazy or highly ideological.

Flash forward to 2016. I have disentangled myself from fundamentalist Christianity, deployed twice in the U.S. Army, came out as a homosexual to my family, and married a woman who is everything that I love about this life. I have two beautiful dogs, and am slowly but surely advancing towards a career in public policy. It has been a full life thus far.

This year should have been incredible. I was looking forward to immersing myself in making this country a better place, enjoying a fresh, fun, loving marriage, and finally making some new friends in a small Arizona border town. I had found my identity, had embraced it, and for the first time in a VERY long time, I was happy.

Enter Presidential Election #45. Now, please. Don’t stop reading. This is so important. I’m not your Hillary pusher. I’m not blind to the fact that we will never live in a perfect world, there will always be anger, frustration, and people screaming as loud as they can with our having their voices heard. Please believe me, that these options were not my choice, nor the choices of many of the people I know. But we all need to understand something, and the sooner we understand, the closer we can come to unity.

The Trump and Clinton epidemic was created by us. We all jumped on the hate trains and put politics ahead of people. Not one person is innocent that I know, everyone changed their views of others based on who they were voting for. People blocked their friends on social media because they couldn’t take their opposing views, families stopped talking to each other, and essentially, we all became divided by two people running for office that we don’t even know. I have found myself obsessed with the horrible things that people say about each other on social media, all because of two people who have no leverage in our personal lives.

I am an American, although some days I am not as happy about it as others. Today, I am not quite as happy as I was yesterday, but perhaps tomorrow will be different. But to those that see this election as a win, please look at your friends and family that are scared, nervous, hurt, and upset, and understand that there are real reasons that they feel that way. Perhaps President-elect Trump is not a racist. However, there are real reasons that your African-American and Latino friends are scared. Maybe he won’t overturn gay marriage,  but there are reasons that people are holding their spouses a little closer today. Maybe he isn’t as sexist as a projects, but there are little girls everywhere that are hearing things on the news that I didn’t hear until I was in high school. Maybe you could offer a smile to the Muslim American that works in your town, and let them know that you don’t make snap judgments about their loyalty to this country. Maybe, just maybe, you could understand why people are terrified, and try to show us what you see in our President-elect. Could you try to explain to us why we matter to you, how you will stand behind us, and what you will do to make sure that we don’t have to lay in bed and worry? Perhaps that would be a better approach to the end of this year. Maybe you could look at a single mom at the grocery store putting back a gallon of milk because she can’t afford it, and offer encouragement and help instead of assuming she is on welfare.

Maybe we can get through this. But it really depends on how you win. Do you win and pour salt in the wounds of the people you love? Or do you win, and really try to understand your fellow American, and let them know that they’re going to be ok, that you recognize their concern, and that you want them to feel like this is their country too?

This season has been hard on everyone. It has been hard on me and my relationship with my family and friends. It has been hard for anyone that considers themselves an American. It has been hard on the Trumps, the Clintons, and everyone in between. If you see this as a win, you have argued that you are not what you have been painted to be. So this is a perfect opportunity to show everyone the great people I know that you are.