"Let it go"

"Let it go".....easy words; some of the first words I learned to read.  These words were the first words out of my mother's mouth when I mentioned I was planning on joining the "Women's March" in DC on the 21st of January.  Easy words to convey, when one is a victor in a game to the "loser"....  It gave me pause when my Mother's advice slammed me in the face.  "Let it go."

In a split second, silent movie reels ran through my mind.  What was the "it" that she was ordering me to "let go" of?  Visions of the rows and rows of Nazis and German soldiers marching and saluting in rigid stances.  A nuclear launch button pressed, within a six minute interval of chaos...masses of women, children, and men, old and young, being beaten with batons, sprayed with tear gas, as they tried to hold firm, just saying "no." And the biggest "it" of all:   a picture of a sweet neighbor, hanging laundry, trying NOT to look at the family who had previously enriched her life, being dragged off, belongings thrown to the side, as they were "escorted" by SS men into the street...never to be seen again.  This woman, their neighbor who calmly was hanging her family's clothing out to dry... "let it go." 

I think those images were so powerful that they made me feel, in a blast of seconds, the hatred and the fear of three simple words.  I wondered, "WHERE are the heroes, the super-humans, the protectors..."  Those special beings that I learned about as a child, to count on and to respect and to honor? 

Well... after appropriately watching Bruce Willis in "Live Free or Die Hard" yesterday, there was my answer.  Heroes are "that guy."  The ones who sacrifice their marriage, their dignity, and their livelihood because there isn't anyone around to be "that guy" but oneself. 

So that was it.  I am going to be "that guy."  I want to be on the right side of history. When our future world looks through the history books at what happened here in the United States of America, when the Electoral College defeated the will of the people and turned our "united" country into an eviscerated, roiling mass of anger and injustice.  When one man, single-handedly gifted our beloved democracy to a foreign dictator who has ever been known to be an enemy to all things fair and democratic.

I am hanging onto a different set of simple words, to give myself strength, and even righteous power that fuels courage:  I am not alone.  MORE simple words, also words we all learned early on in our reading lessons.  But these words are MORE powerful, to me, than those that came from my mother's mouth as she sought to bend me, even break me, because of her embarrassment that I would say...NO.  

"Snowflakes" the Trump supporters call us.  Well...I embrace that term.  Enough snowflakes make a blizzard.  Enough "snowflakes" make an avalanche.  "That guy" can be ALL of us.  Do not "let it go" ..... We are not alone.