Inauguration 2021--it's Done
I thought I would breathe easier but this day left me breathless
What a day this has been! Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. is our 46th president and Kamala Devi Harris is now America’s first female person of color to become Vice President. (But you knew that.) What could be more exciting for a liberal snowflake, or whatever?
I admit I’ve watched every minute of this day and it’s not over yet. Did you see Lady Gaga? JLo? Amanda Gorman reading her poem, “The Hill We Climbed”? I thought I could at last breathe easy today but instead it left me breathless. Happy, but catching my breath all day long. It was that beautiful.
I’ve been waiting for this day for a long, long time. It seems like forever, in fact. But once I knew for sure that Joe Biden was going to be our next president, I made a personal decision—I decided to put my political blog, Ramona’s Voices, in archive mode. No more new posts there. It ran for 12 years, to the exact day today. I started it on the day Barack Obama was sworn in as our 44th President on January 20, 2009, so it’s more than fitting that I end it on the day Joe Biden is sworn in as the nation’s 46th president.
It could be that Donald Trump broke me. I’d like to think I was stronger than that, but Hillary’s loss broke my heart. I was never the same after that. I lost a breast to cancer soon after Trump was sworn in. I was fighting a very different fight that first year, but I honestly welcomed the distraction. It took me away from All Trump All The Time.
Once I’d finished with months of chemo and radiation, I felt as if anything I had to say about the scourge that was Trump had already been said. It could be, too, that I felt my blog, begun with such hope and promise, deserved better than constant stories about Trump and the terrorizing that seemed never to end.
Now that it has ended, now that the monster’s power is gone, I’m ready to move on. I wrote a final post today explaining why I thought it was time, and where I would be writing now.
You can read it here.
I’ll be sad for a while but I’ve been neglecting my blog and it showed. Twelve years is a long time to hang on to a blog, especially a blog that never really took off and built a huge following. Still, it’s more than a blog—it’s a place where I showcase other activist writers along the sidebar in a slot called “Necessary Voices”. I hope readers will still go there to find some of the best writing on the web. If I knew how to move it to my new digs (Here or at Medium) I would do it.
While politics and activism will always be my first priority, there are other things I write about, and it’s time to give them more attention. I’m excited about what’s ahead and I hope you’ll come along with me.
I would love it if you would subscribe to my newsletter, and tell others while you’re at it. Let’s see where this goes.
(Photo credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster)