Four Years Later, I Still Can’t Breathe Deeply: But I Am Alive
November 8, 2016
Donald Trump was elected by our electoral college system. Many people will mark that as a day in history when everything changed.
My wife and I got the alerts on our phones that he was likely to win as we were walking to the celebration party for the brand-new Senator Kamala Harris. We were so excited about voting for her, her campaign, and her political future and we somehow lost all of that as it begun to sink in that Trump won. Despite telling anyone who would listen that I was sure he would win, it still hurt. It didn’t surprise me that white people chose whiteness over reason and, in many cases, their own self-interest, but it still hurt. At the time, I struggled with the anger and fear of knowing that it was a historic day when things would change — but also a day where so much would stay the same. I remember talking to my white wife as she panicked through tears and lamented this state- and voter-sanctioned acceptance of white supremacy and racism at a level never before seen in this country.
I did not shed a tear; I just calmly added an addendum to those thoughts of despair: never before seen or believed or accepted — by white people and people who treasured their proximity to whiteness and power more than listening to the Black people, Muslim people, people with disabilities, queer people, immigrants, women, and other oppressed groups of people who have been living our whole lives knowing all too well what this country is built upon.
I went to bed that night struggling to fully catch my breath. I knew the next four years would be full of anxiety, tense anticipation of what could come next, and unfiltered hate. I wanted to do my breathing exercises, calm down, and be wrong about it all. But I knew I wasn’t. I will never forget the panic attack I had that night — like many nights since — I just could not breathe.
December 18, 2020
I attended my first COVID-19 memorial service. The pandemic has been long and dark. Most of my family are essential workers. Yet, I had somehow been spared from anyone close to me being lost to this virus. I was thankful for that, because I had lost so many Black people as police and this country continued its genocide of Black folks. I was not sure how I would handle a loss of someone close to me from COVID-19.
Even this service was not a direct loss for me, but rather it was for the parent of two of my best friends. People I chose as family when I left the Midwest and moved out to San Francisco. People who I laughed and cried with. People who I have far too many NSFW stories with. People who were a part of my wedding. People I truly love with all of my heart. They lost their dad. Despite only meeting him a few times, that memorial was the hardest thing I experienced in 2020 to that point. Watching your family cry at the end of a dumpster fire of a year causes many thoughts to run through your head. But in the middle of thoughts of anxiety, fear, and sorrow is the deep helplessness that you cannot just be there to hold them. To sit in silence and say nothing, but be there. Being on the other end of a phone and hearing the grief. Sitting in a Zoom room thousands of miles away. Sending flowers or gift cards. None of it seems adequate. None of it feels real.
Somehow, as we started to normalize talking about sorrow and grief, we have yet to truly talk about the deep guilt. The guilt that someone you love is hurting and suffering an immediate family loss while your family — my immediate family — is lucky. We were working from home. We were in a position to afford a nanny so we could both work while we kept our son home from school to wait out the post-Thanksgiving surge. We walked by people experiencing homelessness on the way to our $15 a cup coffee shop and have seen neighbors facing evictions, we’re in that group of affluent people who seem to be thriving. We sold our house, made a profit, and bought an even bigger more expensive house. On December 18, 2020, I turned off all the lights after the service and cried uncontrollably. I struggled, yet again, to breathe, through the tears and snot, as I cried for my friends and family that lost and I cried for this country and all that we lost in 2020 and over the last four years.
On December 19th my family was moving into our brand-new house with our huge yard and swimming pool. Our whole family was living the Los Angeles dream and we were excited about settling into our new place before the holidays and before our new baby arrived just 12 weeks later. How could we find joy knowing there was so much despair around us? Were we horrible people for seeking joy in this darkness?
I am Black and queer, I’m oppressed. I’m also successful. I’m my ancestors’ wildest dream. I was happy. But also broken. Destroyed. Devastated. More than anything I was sorry. Sorry that in the face of so much pain and sorrow for so many, after such a horrible year, I was crying for a loss that was not quite mine, while also celebrating all the riches I was able to amass in 2020.
It was certainly a rough year for me. My struggle with mental health and isolation have been life challenges that were amplified during this unprecedented time. The anxiety of whether “peaceful transfer of power” was a concept that the white supremacist in chief could even comprehend kept me on edge every single day. The way in which many people started saying that we could just get back to normal with Trump gone terrified me because “normal” was never good for Black folks. I left a job with people I admired who tried really hard, but never seemed to be able to completely grasp or own that they perpetuated systems of white supremacy, devalued me and other staff of color, and allowed racism and anti-Blackness to harm people as long as whiteness and white fragility were respected and protected.
But 2020 was also amazing. And honestly, I feel guilty saying it. I traveled less and got to see my baby boy turn into a full-blown toddler full of jokes, opinions, and questions. My marriage was stronger than ever as we tackled the year and struggles together. We got pregnant and were excited about the life we were building for our strong Black kids. I voted for the first Black woman Vice President. I saw Trump lose a popular vote for the second time. I started a business and got to be my full self professionally for the first time in my life, and I made more money doing it. My grandmother was still alive and with the announcement of vaccines I started to feel like she would get a chance to meet her new great-grandchild in person one day. When Trump was elected, she was unfazed, saying she grew up in segregated South Carolina and had seen many horrors and outlived many racists and would outlive this racist presidency. She promised me Trump would not be the last white man in power in this country, but promised he also would not be the last president she would live to see. In 2020, still alive and as feisty as ever in her 80s, she made good on that promise.
My life in 2020 was pretty, well — 2020. Dark, long, and confusing, but with many moments of beauty, hope, and joy.
As a Black person in American, I have always had to balance the knowledge that I was vulnerable, a target, and more likely to die, but still find a way to keep going. In that sense, 2020 felt amplified and harder, but not different. The reality is 2020 was another year where I did not stop being Black. White supremacy did not stop either.
As December ended and we sent out our annual Kwanzaa card we ended it by saying:
“In a year with so much loss and suffering, we are grateful — and honestly relieved — to see another year….
Even with all of the change, distance, and difficult good-byes we endured, what remained consistent is our love and appreciation for family and friends…. We’ll see you soon. Hopefully. Probably.
Yay 2021!”
It felt like a fitting way to end the year. It felt like we were finally finding some balance between grief and hope. It felt like we made it through the year and could finally take in and let out that deep breath, fortified, and ready to move into 2021.
December 30, 2020
Anyone who has a toddler knows that bedtime is a whole hot mess. This bedtime was made worse because my pregnant wife was not feeling well. She was sure it was just a cold and being super pregnant, but she had taken a COVID test at the suggestion of her OB. Just to be sure. After all, LA is facing our “’worst disaster’ in decades as coronavirus rages unchecked” and we had just moved. During the move, we followed all public health protocols, never stayed indoors with any movers or delivery folks for more than fifteen minutes, and stayed masked up. We did have more folks in and out of the house after we realized that the movers had accidentally packed a lawnmower in our storage pod, on its side, and gotten gas all over a bunch of clothes and furniture. This moving snafu was another moment when our privilege and resources was so evident as so we replaced as much as we could by ordering new stuff while we waited for the insurance payment. It just meant a few more deliveries and a few more exposures. But we were careful.
It was definitely just a cold. And a toddler outsmarting us to escape an on-time bedtime.
Then her phone buzzed. A notification. Her test was in. She was positive. Fuck.
A lot of historic important things happened in 2020, but on the eve of the eve of this difficult year ending I was hit with the day I will never forget.
I know my parents struggled, worked multiple jobs, and sacrificed all they had so I could get the college degree they never had. They wanted to make sure I had the opportunities and successes denied to them because they did not have money or white skin. Thank goodness they did. Because they had nothing, but always made sure I had something, I am privileged to have access to information and a very patient friend who works in public health and who answered my texts with a call immediately, sent us an oximeter (with a warning that it might not work for my Black ass because you know, racism), and walked us through what we needed to do for the next 14 days.
My wife and our unborn baby immediately went into isolation — thank goodness for the privilege of having this new larger house. Once our son realized she was not reading his stories that night he cried uncontrollably. And then in that way kids do, he saw in my face that something was wrong. He saw that I was scared. He stopped crying immediately and asked if I was sad. He then looked over my shoulder and asked where she was going. Explaining to a 2-year-old that mom is sick and has germs and we cannot see her for a while was challenging and heartbreaking. As I sit here this morning, I know he’s waking up any minute and will start today like he’s started every day since December 31, 2020: asking if Mommy is sick or going to be able to see us today.
The next morning was supposed to be his first day back at daycare. We were right about our predicted post-Thanksgiving surge at his school. An outbreak was reported after Thanksgiving. Friends asked us how an outbreak happened and who at the school was careless. But an outbreak at a school is not proof that his teachers do not care or that his school and all the parents are not taking every precaution they can, it’s just that in LA — like many communities in America — those “essential workers” we rely on the most are the ones we force to expose themselves to the most harm with the least pay and fewest resources. With unaffordable housing, evictions raging, and people having to work to survive, the virus keeps spreading. Every single staff person at my son’s school is Black or brown, and in LA — like many communities in America — Black and brown people are getting COVID-19 at a higher rate than white people.
Too often during this pandemic people who get COVID-19 are described with adjectives like “careless” or “selfish.” We like to paint broad strokes about how much they could have done to prevent it. Think about it, when you find out someone you know has it, how long does it take you to ask, “Well, um, how did you get it? What were you doing?” We convince ourselves we are asking because we are curious or concerned, or to make sure we don’t put ourselves in that situation. But we quietly, sometimes unconsciously, think to ourselves, “Well, I’d never do that,” or “well, that wasn’t essential, why were they doing that?”
I know it happens because I watched people do it to us. Most of our friends, colleagues, and family were overly generous, we could not have gotten through it without them sending food, well wishes, kids’ books, and supplies. But others could barely hide their judgement about what we must have done to deserve this.
No one deserves to get COVID-19.
No one deserves the nights I spent alone on the couch crying and wondering if my wife who was wheezing in another part of the house would be there when I went to take her food the next morning. After initially testing negative and taking care of my son for several days while we both wore masks inside as I was feeling great and he slowly started to get sick, I eventually tested positive. That meant that I was able to move back into our room with my wife, but I haven’t slept a full night since December 30. No one deserves falling asleep thinking about where the life insurance documents are and cursing yourself for not finishing that will. No one deserves to have to talk to someone they love about what to do if one of you stops breathing in the middle of the night when it is unclear if an ambulance will get you to the hospital or have enough oxygen to keep you alive on your way. No one deserves having to consistently leave your child alone in a room so he does not see you cry when he asks for the 100th time in the last ten minutes where his mommy is and then looks at you and says he misses her. No one deserves to contemplate a life without ever getting to meet your unborn child or that child being born but never meeting their mother. No one deserves to sit alone looking at family pictures and wondering if the last family picture is the last family picture.
No one deserves any of this. COVID-19 has brought us all of this. Despite lingering exhaustion, debilitating headaches, general brain fog and inability to focus, no sense of taste or smell, and the occasional inability to catch our breath after exerting ourselves minimally…we are still alive. We are here. We think we will be okay.
But too many families never got to this point. Too many families have lost someone because of COVID-19. Too many families are mourning that loss with shame, in silence, and with guilt. Too many families did not get the same ending to their COVID-19 story as my family did with ours.
Beyond that, too many families faced all of those things that no one deserved before COVID-19 was a term many of us had even heard. Too many families that are people of color, too many families that are poor, too many families that lack access to privilege, power, information, and whiteness know all too well what it is like to fall asleep every night wondering if they will wake up in the morning. They wonder if they will be okay. They wake up knowing they may be alive, but may have been disregarded in this country with a feeling that no one cares about their lives or their deaths.
I have seen and heard about that feeling whenever I talk to my grandmother about living through the Civil Rights movement as a Black woman in the South. I have seen and heard about that feeling when I talk to my dad about growing up in the projects with his 14 brothers and sisters and cousins and friends all in one spot and selling drugs to get by and get out. I have seen and heard about that feeling when I talk to all the Black moms in my life, including my mom, whenever they talk about the concern they have for their children just trying to live — just trying to breathe.
People in this country deserve so much more. In particular, Black people in this country deserve so much more. I thought 2020 was ending in the worst way possible. I thought I might lose my wife, my everything. I did not know how it could get worse, but I had a feeling it might. Then 2021 started, turned to 2020 and said, “Eh, bro. Hold my beer.”
I never caught my breath at the end of 2020. I make my living from speaking. Speaking up. Speaking out. Speaking truth. But I ended the year relatively quiet. I started 2021 quiet. I was in bed, unsure if it was COVID-19 finally taking its toll on me, 2020 finally taking its toll on me, the Donald Trump reign finally taking its toll on me, or being Black and queer in America finally taking its toll on me. I am still not sure what it is. I just know I still cannot take that deep breath I have been craving. I cannot take the deep breath I need.
I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.
I cannot put my finger on what is causing it, probably a combination of all of those things. I just know that it has been incredibly hard to breathe in a year where so many Black folks hear those words playing over and over again in our heads, on the news, and in our communities as Black people continue to be killed by the systems of racism, white supremacy, and anti-Blackness in this country.
Four years after Trump took office, I still can’t breathe deeply. But I am still alive. I am forever grateful for that. I know I have to keep fighting. For those who took their last breath in 2020. For those who took their last breath due to COVID-19. For those who took their last breath because of this country’s commitment to white supremacy and protecting whiteness.
I still can’t breathe deeply. But I am still alive.
January 20, 2020
A country founded by stealing land from Indigenous people has always sanctioned settler colonialism with a mix of white supremacy. November 8, 2016 was not the first time white supremacy won. We have to clearly see that and be honest about it if we want to build a more perfect union. We must disabuse people new to seeing injustice and inequity of the notion that white supremacy will magically end with today’s historical inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. As we saw mere days ago, whiteness pushes people who fear losing power or their perceived proximity to it (no matter how delusional that belief) to do everything they possibly can to hold onto it. Whiteness allows us to value Black lives less than we value property and ideals that are only real for certain people in this country. That will not change on this historic day. We cannot simply erase our history — and present-day realities — with the taking of one or two oaths.
I know that truth to be self-evident. But I also know that the last four years, 2020, and the beginning of 2021 have been tough. That is an understatement. They have been ridiculously fucking hard.
But today, I plan to sit in front of my television and watch history. I plan to watch President Joe Biden preach unity as he brings dignity and respect to the office that has sorely lacked it for the past four years. I plan to watch Dr. Biden look on proudly as the backbone of a family that has endured much loss. I plan to watch a Black woman of Asian descent with her beautiful blended family make all of us proud as she looks like someone who could be my Auntie making it through one more layer of that glass ceiling. I plan to text my women of color friends and tell them how much I love them and share how happy we are while we comment on all the Black women who saved us and still found time to buy the perfect outfit for today and are slaying our screens with Black beautiful fierceness.
I plan to watch the witty banter between Chrissy Teigen and Meena Harris online and pretend we are friends and all there in person celebrating together. I also plan to send all the positive vibes, prayers, energies I can towards our nation’s capital and hope that they are both protected and make it through this day safely and are able to find joy in small moments they have with their loved ones today as they prepare to take on the major crises that face our country.
More than anything, I plan to allow myself to feel the joy of still being here, with my family. I plan to be happy to be alive and breathing. My lingering COVID-19 symptoms and my being Black in America still will not allow me to take that deep breath and sigh of relief that I so desperately crave. But I am still breathing.
I am still here and I will keep fighting to dismantle white supremacy and anti-Blackness in all that I do, every single day. We have a new President, a new Vice President, and the most diverse administration in history. These are all reasons for celebration. But this is still America. There is still a genocide of Black people occurring in this country. COVID-19 is still raging throughout the nation and people are still dying. Disparities still exist, with race being the number one factor in determining your likelihood to live a long life, breathe clean air, get a good education, have access to quality transportation options, and achieve some form of economic stability and mobility. None of that will change today.
Many people will mark 2020 as a year when “we” finally woke up and saw the way that racism, white supremacy, colonialism, and all the other isms impact historically — and currently — oppressed people in this country. The only thing is: believing that “we” are finally seeing these things is still centering whiteness. We have to stop using “we” when we mean white people. Because a lot of us have always seen what this country is, what it is built on, and who is valued. Many of us have committed our lives to changing that, and were doing so long before November 8, 2016. Many of us will work to hold our new leaders accountable to the promises made during their campaign and during generations of campaigns by people appealing to us as voters, but forgetting us once in office.
I am excited about today. I could not sleep last night. I am genuinely happy for the potential of what this country can do. Today I celebrate.
Today I eat lots of fancy bread and cheese and enjoy the sun as it shines bright on a new day in history. But I am cautious, I am strategic, I am tireless in my fight for justice, and above all, I am Black. There will be an urge today to say “we” made it. I do not want to minimize what we all collectively experienced the last four years. We are still here. Still breathing. Still alive. But every time you say “we” made it over the next few days, I urge you to think about who “we” truly is. Beyond that think about who did not make it. There is still much to be done, so think about who will not make it if we don’t stay committed to dismantling and changing our structures, systems, and policies. There is much work to be done to acknowledge, address, and change the hate, anti-Blackness, and white supremacy that have been deeply rooted in every single institution in this country.
But tomorrow I plan to get back to work on changing that. I hope you do, too.
