The truth hurts

What are we going to do about it?

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

In the craft of writing fiction and memoir, there’s something called a misbelief.

It’s the thing that the main character in your story believes to be true. It’s the thing that fuels the main character to go after her goal. It’s the thing that the character believes so much — with every cell of her being — that she can’t see what’s going on around her. She cannot see that opposing forces are all around, getting in the way of achieving her goal. Until she does.

This discovery — the aha moment when the protagonist meets her adversary — is part of what drives the plot and keeps the story moving forward. Keeps the reader hooked and turning the page. Now what the writer must do is figure out what the main character is prepared to do knowing that these opposing forces are getting in the way.

Sometimes life imitates fiction. Sometimes it’s the other way around. And right now, if you are among the 70-plus million who voted for her, you’re the character facing the heart-breaking reality that your candidate didn’t just lose. She lost to the devil.

Your vote is the step/action your character takes to achieve her goal. This is the person I want running my country.

And your decision to vote for one candidate versus another — electing the first woman president or keeping America a multiracial democracy, to name a few —is your character’s motivation.

And your vision of how a country can and should work — a place of bodily autonomy, where love is love, where differences are embraced, where pluralism is revered, where the land is protected, where dictators are not welcome — is your misbelief. You want this so badly you can taste it. You’ve canvassed, you bought the t-shirt. You’re chanting “We’re not going back,” in your dreams. You’ve memorized every word of Beyonce’s “Freedom.” You are so repulsed by Him and his fake tan, the grabs of all the pussies, the nonstick pan coating that protects him from ever spending a day in jail. He’s the luckiest piece of shit and the biggest. There’s no fucking way this is going to happen again. Because we got this. This — this is your/my/our character’s misbelief.

The reality — the aha moment — isn’t just about the devil winning. It’s about how decisive this win was/is. That 75 million of your/our/my colleagues, neighbors, friends, siblings, inlaws, teachers voted for Him. For this character, grief disperses throughout her body like flu.

What we know, we really know, is how 75 million people really feel — that a woman, especially a Black woman, is not to be trusted — with her own body and definitely not with running a country. Now we know that the hatred and mistrust of women runs so deep they’ll vote for the scum of the earth.

It is heartbreaking and devastating, yes. How could this be? Tears staining cheeks and pillows across the land of the Blue.

But in the story of your/our/my character’s life, this is a major step in the plot — when the protagonist lifts the veil of her misbelief and sees for herself the very thing that’s standing in the way. And when she does this, the protagonist of your/our/my story is emboldened.

When someone reveals who they are, a door opens. You know where the devil stands. And that truth serum, as disorienting as it may seem coursing through your body, will reveal a clearing, and brings with it a certain kind of power. This is the hand your/our/my character has been dealt; so what is she/we/you going to do about it?

The character of my life does not have any answers. She is still grieving. But throughout the course of her story, she has always appreciated the truth, no matter how painful. To acknowledge this terrible time and to figure out a new way to her destination. The story is still being written.