November and the End of the World

November is here, and it feels like the world is ending. The sun sets before I even log off from work, and I wore shorts comfortably at 6 am this morning. Over half the nation just voted in a bigoted felon to run our country, and we’re all expected to go about our days normally, for the next four years. Women are furious, white men are victorious, and the rest of the world is on fire. November is here, the world is ending.

November always holds some sort of melancholy, a reminder that the year is practically over. It’s sundown by 4 PM and the precipice of cold winter nights. It’s a reminder of all the goals you planned to achieve this year but never seemed to get around to. You promise yourself you still have two months left and that a lot can be done in two months. You promise yourself this but the grip of November holds you tight to the mattress of your bed, refusing to let you up, and the silent struggle always gives way to one more hour of slumber. November used to be so bright and full of dreams, of Thanksgiving and family time and holidays. It used to welcome in fluffy snow and twinkly lights and presents under a decorated tree. Now, November has dark spots on it, like a fruit that is slowly rotting. It has been picked up and squeezed and placed back down by too many hands, too many times, fingertips bruising its soft flesh. November, you used to be so ripe and sweet. What have you become now?

I wish I was being dramatic. I wish I could close my eyes and wake up in my childhood bedroom surrounded by my pink and purple walls, my biggest concern being what shoes to wear to school. I wish I still had a novel view of life, a childlike wonder unscathed by the harrowing future my womanhood would soon face. I wish the prospect of tomorrow doesn’t scare me like it does today, that I could tell myself everything will be okay and truly believe it. There are a lot of things I want, a lot of things I wanted, a lot of things we all wanted. Hopeful thinking does not always breed disappointment, but disappointment is always catalyzed by hopeful thinking.

November is me trying to escape reality by picking up the most miscellaneous of hobbies. Oh, save me, music theory videos. Studying art history in an attempt to regain sanity. Rereading my favorite childhood books to recapture the excitement I once had for new opportunities. Going for my second walk of the day because my mind won’t focus on a single thing. Going for my third walk of the day, and it’s already dark at 4 PM. I wish I was not so pessimistic about the world. But is it that, though? Pessimism? Surely not. Surely it’s something more than that. A glazed reality has suddenly come into clarity after the series of unfortunate events over the past twenty-three years of my life. It is not pessimism when the haunting fears and stripping of personal agenda have become the truth you live in, now. For some of us, for most of us, this is our life now. 

I mourn for Novembers past, for the seemingly ignorant bliss I existed in. I mourn for the young girls of today, guiltily hoping that climate change and global warming will take them out before the wrath of the patriarchy. I mourn for my relationship with my parents, what once was a sliver of a rift now feels like a vast canyon. I mourn for their lack of empathy, pleading to my father, can’t you see? You have two daughters, you have a wife, you have women in your life that you love. Is this truly the world you want them to live in? Will you ever have peace knowing that you consciously put yourself on the side of history that stands on the necks of women? The side that will condemn our voices and tear away any sense of our bodily autonomy? Don’t say it’s not political. Everything is. Everything affects everyone, and we will all bear the consequences of these actions. Only then will it be too late.

November, I wish you had never come because maybe things would still feel okay. I wish you had been delayed a little while, maybe got stuck in traffic or forgot your keys at home. I wish you forgot to set your alarm or your engine wouldn’t start. I wish the subway was too busy and there was construction everywhere on the road. I wish it was still July because despite the bittersweet nostalgia I felt then, it does not compare to the devastating apprehension I harbor now. 

November, you are here now. I sit at my desk at 5 PM, closing my laptop and opening my blinds. My room is still dark because the sun sets at 4 pm. Not even the glow of my phone dimly lights my space. I can not bear to see the devastation of reality today, of tomorrow, of the next four years. Everything is dark. November is here, our world is ending.