What a fall! I made the slightly insane decision to enroll in four classes at my old school, Hellgate, as well as to continue doing full IB online through Eswatini, all so I could play soccer. Was it worth it? Abso-fudging-lutely. This soccer season was bizarre; we had to wear masks on the bus and the bench, I elbow-bumped the other team's captain at the coin toss, and we basically only hung out with our teammates all season in order to limit the number of "contacts" we had. But even these inconveniences had their, to link to the title, silver linings. For unphotogenic people such as myself, the masks were very helpful. If I was feeling particularly competitive, it was easier to channel that energy into an elbow-bump than a handshake. And finally, I felt closer to this group of girls than any other team I have ever played with, partly because of the shared responsibility of keeping our season alive. Another way the season was different was that we had a new group of coaches; these coaches were three incredibly funny, athletic, strong, inspirational women that built a beautiful team culture and were role-models for every single player. Shoutout to Natalie, Crystal, and Rachel!
While this very dramatic, exciting season was happening, another competition was going on; the 2020 U.S. Presidential election. If you didn't know, I'm not exactly a Trump fan. I would say I am more a climate action, racial equity, strong economy, affordable healthcare, principled leadership, veteran support, LGBTQ rights, and justice fan. Therefore, I really felt like this election was a biggy. I put a lot of time into mobilizing other teenagers through High School Democrats Abroad to do text-banking and phone-banking for campaigns across the country. I had text conversations with Americans of all political affiliations that both terrified me and gave me hope. I was inspired by the elderly ladies that were a part of my "phone-banking team." I learned about candidates, polarization, and the origins of the electoral college. I saw first-hand the awesome power of grassroots organizing. And I saw us win.
Also, I turned 18 in October and got to vote for the first time. I had a "suffrage birthday party" where my extended family all brought their ballots and we filled them out together (I would recommend it, but only if you are fairly certain you align politically with them because otherwise, things might get awkward.) With the combination of bubbling my first ballot and social media buzzing with the word "vote," I thought about the privilege of a functioning democracy for the first time. Billions of people have no real influence over who leads them, but we do. We do.
So, like most of my blog posts so far, I'll end with gratitude; gratitude for an incredible soccer season with incredible women, for my education, for a functioning democracy, for learning from the hard times this fall, for family, friends, and home.
I hope everyone reading this is being easy on themselves and appreciating the silver linings of this time :) Thanks for reading!
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