Sigh of Relief

📚 Story of the Week #24

Nowadays, why I cry is upside down.

Like most children, sad things would move me to tears. I assume it’s because when we’re young, we’ve not grown accustomed to the world’s misfortune.

Growing older, my settings have changed. Expecting the unfortunate, it can no longer make me cry. It makes me angry, and I want to fix things, but I don’t cry.

Crying requires us to be surprised, like losing something we didn’t realise we cherished so much.

With the news injecting us with the worst of humanity, it’s no wonder my tears dried up.

I'm not saying I can't cry – it's still in my emotional catalogue. It’s just moved.

Instead of being indexed under acts of cruelty, it’s now found under acts of kindness.

America loves a good cliché.

Ideally it is supersized with a side of fries.

To a Brit, the Americans always over egg the pudding when it comes to optimism.

It tends to leave me feeling nauseous.

Today, something was different.

Watching the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris victory speech, the tears started to stream. Out of context, it's full of clichés, hopeful rhetoric, and proclamations of a brighter future.

Had you shown me the video in 2015, I would have scoffed, ‘How American. They always dial things to eleven’.

But having seen the light fade over the last four years, never have I been more glad to see our American friends supersize our hope for the future.

We can and will make things better.

It’ll be hard, and it’ll take time, but doing what is right is always better than doing what is easy.

Stay curious,

Jamie