CW: State violence, fatal shooting.

I wrote a letter on Monday about living each day like it’s your first. It's about the hope and love I’ve mustered from trying new things imperfectly. The next morning, Tuesday, I woke up with the flu. I spent most of the day in bed just praying I’d feel better before my 10 am presentation on Wednesday. No such luck. I ended up doing my AI recruiting presentation for Michigan manufacturers virtually in a turtle neck with gym shorts on. It’s… a look. 

Afterward, I took a shower and laid down for the day. I was physically spent, that hollow kind of exhausted where your skin feels too thin for the BS. I think that’s why the news hit me so hard. The news was from Minneapolis. A person, Renee Nicole Good, had been shot in the street by an ICE enforcement officer. Then I saw a video I don’t know that I’ll ever forget. 

In one of the first-hand testimonials shared immediately after the shooting, I saw agents surrounding the car. As the camera panned to the right, a person with a dog was sitting on this person’s sidewalk. They were gently, almost untraceably, rocking back and forth. Then, a whisper. A cry, really. “I need someone to help,” they said like a child trying to open a jar but with all the weight of a person who desperately needed another human to hold them. 

I can’t explain what happened inside me. The way I felt all the fears I’ve been trying to bottle up and ignore in this endless bad news cycle. Just this week I read a warning from The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention that we are in the early stages of genocide against trans people.  As a trans person in this world, I am constantly wondering if I’m being stupid staying in the United States at all.

But I also grew up as the child of two military officers and a grandmother who cried every time she heard the National Anthem. I can’t imagine loving another country like I love this one. That love has become more complicated over the last 10 years as I witnessed the deep hatred that was given permission to exist out loud in 2016. I experienced it first hand in restaurants where they refused to serve me as I sat directly in front of their register. Second hand in the way all of you do, via social media posts and other people’s first hand accounts. It’s a lot to take in no matter the degree. 

This hate has only escalated and the first real break I took from consuming it via social media since van life was just a few months ago on a once in a lifetime birthday trip to Italy. It was the first time I stopped looking at my phone for more than a few hours in at least a year. While I was there, I got a tattoo inspired by a conversation between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ezra Klein. I remember the premise of that interview vividly: that hope and justice must be allowed to exist imperfectly. Expecting perfection or an ending to injustice in a society built on a series of broken promises? That’s a formula for disappointment we’ve all practiced for too long.  

After listening to that conversation, I decided to practice the only other imperfect emotion I know deeply: love. Love for my family and friends who feel the weight of the world while trying to run businesses and make life exciting for their children. Love for my neighbors who are just as scared as we are. Love for strangers who don’t share my sentiments or beliefs. Love for my country that is crying for help, even with its deeply imperfect reality. 

Even with all that love, a letter about 'living like it’s your first' filled with the whimsy of a fresh start felt out of sync with my week. But perhaps 'living like it’s your first' isn’t just about the joy of new things; maybe it’s about the raw, unfiltered way we see the world before we learn to look away. I’ll share next week. 

Will these awful things stop happening by then? Probably not. But I will march forward and lean into optimism anyway. Not because the world is perfect, but because I have decided to act with a love that is as imperfect, as weary, and as determined as I am.