a year in the rearview

I remember last year's election night like it was yesterday. I think that's probably true for most people — especially those in the US. I remember the Saturday before the 2024 presidential election even better, though. November 2nd, 2024.

Do you remember what you had for dinner a year ago? That night, I ate microwave beef au jus, leftover (poorly cooked) rice, and an heirloom tomato drizzled with olive oil and way too much salt, with a grainy mango for dessert. I drank ginger lemon tea with local honey from the upstate new york fall festival. I washed my hair, then braided it. I was wearing my favorite sweater, freshly cleaned. I watched Portrait of a Lady on Fire for the first time and interrupted it halfway through to watch Kamala Harris on SNL. I felt some happiness. I felt a lot of frustration. But mostly, I felt hope. It was the highlight of my semester.

My building last year at Syracuse — Skyhall 3 — had a bug problem. Stink bugs, the size of a nickel, were everywhere. You couldn't get rid of them. Trap four, drown three, and one still mocked you from the top corner of your wall. Even when you couldn't see them, you could hear them buzzing around. Time and time again, they would crawl across my desk, sit on my monitor, fly into the side of my head. At a certain point, you have to cede the battle. By late october that room wasn't mine, it was theirs. I did my best, but I was no match; they were as much owners of the space as I was[1].

Eventually, as the frost began to settle in and the air outside chilled, the bugs, finally, died. They piled up on my windowsill; mounds of brown corpses.

For a long time, I tried to write about Portrait, and for a long time, it evaded me. It felt impossible to capture my relationship with the film. How do you describe a movie that changes you? How do you put into words the gift of hope? Portrait buoyed me when I felt like I was going underwater. It was a reprieve. The light at the end of the tunnel. The comforting fog that settles in on a rainy sunday morning.

Soccer analytics has been a central part of my life since I was introduced to it two years ago. Yet, at times last year, it became all of me. Between manually tracking event data for my university's men's soccer team and running reports, redesigning my post-match graphics and building Tableaus, I let my waking hours be filled with work. This was entirely avoidable and 100% self-imposed, sure, but at the time, I wanted it. I wanted to only think about work. It blocked out the other stuff.

Portrait was the antithesis of that. It was anything but work, and I allowed myself to be consumed by it "calmly as to a night’s repose,– Like flowers at set of sun."

SNL was different. I'm not a regular watcher, but having just voted, I felt like getting lib-pilled for a second. It was... fine. It's easy to look back in hindsight and say that my brief sense of hope simply masked a depressing knowledge of what was to come, but I can't know that for sure. I know that I felt fine about Kamala, even if I wasn't confident going into the election. I know that I was holding my breath, waiting, waiting to release it.

Kamala was no Zohran, I'll just say that. On Tuesday, I wasn't holding my breath. I wasn't suffocating. I was celebrating.

This last year has been difficult. I knew last election night that coming out under a Trump second term would be a lot different than coming out under Kamala. I feel immensely grateful to have a wonderful support system and means to access the medications that let me feel alive. Many people are not so lucky, and so many more have been forced into worse positions because of this presidency. It breaks my heart to think of the thousands of trans kids who will grow up in a country that wants them dead. I hope that someday we can all work to make that right. And while mayor is no president, it is unbelievably heartening to see Mamdani run an explicitly pro-trans campaign. He has exceeded the expectations of every democrat before him (the bar was low, but still). He made a campaign ad about sylvia rivera, for christ's sake.

Three more years, but he made this one better.

There's one glaring difference between the me now and the me a year ago. Apart from the college, and the fact I'm writing this on a train and not in an airport (thank god), that is. I came out, I did it. I reached out to the glowing sunrise and wrapped my arms around it, though the heat burned my arms and the light left me dazed.

I watched Portrait again the other day, as part of a 10-day, 10-film binge (all sapphic movies, of course)[2]. It was the same as before, and I was entirely different. Did I still cry? Obviously. But these weren't tears of desperation. They were tears of happiness, freedom, and peace. That movie still means more to me than I can put into words, but it isn't my lifeline anymore. I can live on my own.

Today may not be perfect, but man, what a difference a year makes.

[1] It was my first year in a single, and I wasn't great at putting up decorations. When my brother came to visit, he helped me make the room a bit more homey (thank you). I imagine the bugs appreciated it, too.

[2] I'm incapable of having a normal relationship with media.