I don’t use this category much these days. The election of 45 was heartbreaking and I needed to distance myself from the normal to exist.

Yes it was that deep – for me.

This was a tough week, which brought a lot of memories to the surface. Elizabeth Warren dropped out the race for President leaving 2 yt men, older than dirt, who give zero fucks about a person like me in the running for the nomination to hopefully unseat the moron at 1600.

The day after, Hulu released a document-series about one of my heros Hillary Clinton.

To top THAT off I got to spend some time with a new person I really like, let’s call them Sir, and Sir is one of those people I can have these deep discussions with and pontificate about things. You know, Sir is what Tempest wants to be when she grows up.

I’d like to be one of those people who writes and it goes viral and the world sees my point and I change the world. Instead I write and a handful of people see this and they get to know me, intimately, but the world stands unaltered.

I want to write about the effect of 2016 and 2020 elections on someone like me. Yet, I don’t seem to have the following, the traction, the exposure to get the narrative out there to create the bigger conversation.

I write anyhow, because…me.

I’ve been impacted by Hillary Clinton from my youth.

I can recall in elementary school being asked what I wanted to be when I grew up by a teacher. I told her without doubt and with all the the conviction my 11 year old self could muster, that I was going to be the first Black woman Chief Justice of the United States. Even at 11 I knew the correct title – hint it is NOT Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. That teacher told me it was a stupid goal. We already had a woman on the court [Sandra Day-O’Connor] and no Black woman would ever be the Chief. This was 1983ish. Not the 1950’s where my girl idol Hillary was finding her way the 1980s. Also, this was teacher, a person responsible to educate and inspire telling a little nappy headed Black girl with ribbons in her hair that what she wanted was not possible.

When I was out of high school, and working for the City of Philadelphia and trying to figure out what more to life there was than being a civil servant, William Jefferson Clinton became the President and brought his wife to Washington.

For just a little more context before I spring into this rant, I was raised by 2 older Black women. Older than that of my peers, my mother was born in 1936. Their existence was light years behind mine as a child born in the 70s and my reality was not theirs. They too spent a lot of time explaining to me that my high hopes and big dreams and desires to be anything other than someone’s wife weren’t valid.

Then HRC arrived in our Nation’s Capital and showed me something different. My female influencers hated her, which automatically won her points in my book. If Catherine and Esther didn’t like it, then I wanted it.

I can recall news reports of this strange creature who was married to the man who would be President. We’d not as a nation seen anything like her. Her existence wasn’t just to smile next to her husband, she’d had a career. I don’t mean she was an actress, I don’t mean she’d done a few years in work force before finally assuming her rightful place. She’d worked and been the high earner in the relationship. She had a REAL job, she was a lawyer, and a successful one at that. Her duties became something we’d never seen in that of the female spouse of the leader of the free world, she was running a task force for an important issue – health care. What Hillary gave to me was validation. What the world was constantly telling me was not possible for me, was. Although my personal path didn’t verse then to who I am today, it was Hillary who’s audacity of existence shone brightly, that gave me permission to hope. Sure that may be where Bill was from, but Hillary was the walking and talking and doing version of it.

Health Care didn’t pass, and while I didn’t see it then, the yt men of power feared her. The attacks on her began back then, and extraordinary as she is, I don’t think any human being can outrun 30 years of narratives, to the populace.

What Hillary taught me in her First Lady tenure was, speak up. It doesn’t matter if they hear you say it anyway. She taught me to never let them see you sweat. Yes you are going to feel the knives they throw at you, but you are certainly strong enough to stand. She taught me that yes at times for the overall good, you have to step back, but your presence is still felt. Those are lessons you’ve watched me living these past 10 years constant reader.

When her husband made her look like a fool to the globe, she chose to fight for her marriage and for him to remain the President. I didn’t know then the lesson she was teaching me, but I can see it today, in my current relationship actually, that you can dislike your partner, but still work for the common goal, and if the stars align you can find a way back to the commitment you made to one another. I now know how hard that is, I didn’t then. I now understand a deep, overwhelming love which allows you to consider the pros and cons of leaving the relationship. I also understand that while people on the outside who look in may not understand your actions, it is acceptable to trust your judgment and your partner and taking the chance that it can be ‘fixed’. It won’t always, but the effort is something I had to learn.

When Hillary did the unthinkable and chose to be a politician, I wanted her to win. She would not be MY Senator, but I wanted her to win. I saw a woman who in any other circumstance would win easily, if she had a penis. She was smart and talented and had ideas and was charismatic and dynamic and if she had a penis it would have been simple.

Yet, it wasn’t. She was shackled by her marriage, defined by her detractors, and had to more and be batter than the mediocre man they ran against her.

She also did something no First Lady had ever done before. Did she make mistakes along the way? Absolutely, but for someone like me, who watched her work, who researched her history, who admired her once she was known to me, I rooted for her.

When she decided to run for President it was a no brainer for me. I was with Her. I never jumped onto the Obama train and wrote her in on my 2008 ballot. While I would learn to love and respect and admire our 44th President and Stan hard for him now, in 2008 it wasn’t even close. Yes 2008 was historic it but I wanted it to he HERstoric. I wanted estrogen in the Oval, I wanted Hillary.

I watched her as Secretary of State. I was amazed by her. I specifically recall one State of the Union where she sat in the front row wearing a pink head band, giving zero fucks and from that moment on Pink was my signature color.

When 2016 arrived and she said let’s do it again, I was all in,,,,,again.

I foolishly hoped that Obama had opened the door to an America I could live in. Not just exist in but LIVE in.

Then Bernie Sanders and his useless mediocre ass waltzed onto the stage and I was reminded of what life is like. That as a woman, no matter how talented and smart and deserving I am, some man is going to walk in the door and because penis, he will be viewed as my superior. Make no mistake Hillary SLAUGHTERED Sanders in the primaries. Outside of his known territory in New England it was not close. I allowed myself to hope again. Hope Constant Reader is a lie.

I was looking at the most qualified human being to ever run for the office, how could we possibly say no? How?

For 3 debates I watched her surgically castrate that thing which me must now call 45, and thought, this is a no brainer.

And on election night the staff at the homeless shelter I lived in had to threaten me with the crisis response team if I didn’t pull my inconsolable self together as I watched the returns.

With help from James Comey and Putin, she was denied again.

She was the only thing standing in the way of the people who would harm me, and now the rest of my years here on this 3rd rock from the sun would be spent in war.

Knowing all the fuckery that would come from the White House wasn’t what ‘killed’ me, it was 53%.

It was knowing that sure I am Black which has it’s own set of issues and challenges, but that I am a woman, and the only people I could hope to lend a hand, were people like Hillary were the same people who helped that creature called 45 win was too much.

Hillary taught me a lot, but what I had hoped she was teaching me…that the 53% were like here, turned out to be that lie called hope.

Yesterday I watched the docuseries. I fell in love with Hillary all over again.

She’s not running for office again, she doesn’t have to politically support her husband any longer, and she’s an ‘old’ woman. As I age and my give a fucks begin to disappear, I was excited to see a 20 year older version of myself, free to finally say what was on her mind and she did not disappoint. Sure a part of me wanted to watch her burn the world, and would applaud it after it’s treated her. Yet, because she is one of those exceptional human beings she was frank but not harmful, graceful even when those she extended grace were not deserving.

Kamala, Elizabeth, Hillary are why I fight today, and why this category has a new entry.

They reminded me of just who the fuck I am, and why Vizionz Infinity WILL be a thing.

Out there somewhere is a girl who will watch MY story and continue her fight in a world where even though the calendar says 20__ the reality of it is 18__. That is assuming that corona virus doesn’t kill her because we rejected the GOAT for a rat.