I Am Excited About My Future And This President Won’t Change That: A List

We have a new president-elect and I will be honest, I am scared. My immediate reaction is to hide for the next four years. But the thing is that my life — and yours, dear reader — will hopefully be much longer than the next four years. And while hope is not a strategy for creating change, sometimes we aren’t always trying to strategize, sometimes we’re just trying to survive. Our future president may try and succeed to take away a lot of my rights, but he cannot take away my future. I am magical and my future is bright. You are magical and your future is bright. We’re going to struggle and fight, and we shouldn’t have to, but we will. And our futures will remain bright because of our work. I think that’s beautiful. I’m excited about my future. I’m a little nervous also, but I’m more excited than nervous, because just as the seasons change, our president will as well. Things may not get better under him, in fact, they may get worse. But one day, and maybe even some days in the next four years, there will be beauty and excitement in our lives.  

So! Here’s a list of 41 things that make me so fucking excited because my future is big and bright and beautiful and I can’t wait.

1. Getting a Ph.D. and writing a book no one will read
2. Wearing academic regalia and taking selfies in the bathroom
3. Volunteering with the Girl Scouts
4. My Christmas tree getting tackier and tackier every year
5. Making out with cuties in the grass
6. Watching the rain out my windows and pretending I’m in a music video
7. Being middle-aged and gossiping on the porch with QTPOC friends
8. Having a million foster children
9. Getting sweaty at hundreds of queer dance parties
10. Seasons changing
11. Planting fruit trees and growing vegetables in my front yard to share with my neighbors
12. Staying up too late to party at Klub Deer year after year after year after year
13. Perfecting the dad joke
14. Leaving my Diva Cup and dildos in the dish drying rack
15. My cats growing up and actually using the litter box (debatable)
16. Posing with every statue on the University of Texas at Austin’s campus
17. Being in someone’s gay wedding and maybe one day having one of my own (???)
18. Forgetting about Peeps and then remembering them when Easter comes around
19. Sleeping outdoors
20. Buying new stationary
21. Decorating my jean jackets with pins and patches
22. Filling up a home with books and plants and candles and love
23. Actually reading all the books that I buy
24. One day visiting Obama’s Presidential Library
25. Going to small humans’ softball games and dance recitals
26. Queer sex
27. Listening to Prairie Home Companion
28. Road trips
29. Building my collection of baseball caps
30. Friday nights in with face masks and The Crown
31. Painting my nails black
32. Marathoning The Lord of the Rings yearly
33. Blue Ivy Carter’s 16th birthday
34. Swimming in the nude
35. Meeting Joe Biden one day
36. The first woman president
37. The first woman of color president
38. The first trans president
39. The first non-binary president
40. The first trans woman of color president
41. Having a themed BBQ in 4 years to celebrate the end of this presidency