Georgetown University graduation May 2016

I put off looking for work after graduation from Georgetown University, and I sacrificed time with my family to ‘be the change’ at the Democratic National Convention, and I went into debt using credit cards because I didn’t get fully funded.

I did all that because I believed in a message, an idea, a REVOLUTION that our country could become the place I want it to be. I drank the Kool-Aid, I saw that light, and I believed with every fiber of my being that I could help make a difference.

The DNC changed me. This experience changed me. Bernie Sanders changed me.

I feel like I’ve stepped out of the Matrix and I don’t know how to go back. Maybe it is PTSD, maybe it is grief, but for as much as I want to un-see the things I’ve seen, I can’t. I don’t know how to process that. There is so much injustice happening right now, so much corruption, so much trampling on our human rights in the name of money and greed that I feel stuck and angry. I can’t go backwards into the Matrix, but I don’t know how to go forward, move on with my life and keep my sanity knowing what I know. I’ve lost friends over being a delegate and becoming an activist, I’ve gotten into fights with family, I’ve been verbally chastised in my own home, but I’ve also been ignored, and cast aside, and had my rights trampled. Our country has become an oligarchy, our rights a façade, and our future was decided by the wealthy and stolen from us. I have never felt so insignificant as I did standing with 1900 other delegates, who made up 46% of the Democratic Party. We represented over 13 million people who voted for Bernie Sanders this spring! However, former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb said it best at breakfast one morning, he saw we had hope that when we arrived in Philadelphia we still believed we could still affect the nomination. He thought it was cute that we still had that passion.

The entire event was scripted from the start as a four day commercial for Hillary Clinton, to prevent any uprising, any surprises, or any true form of democracy. If you don’t believe me, feel free to ask long time Colorado Democrat, Polly Baca, who was bragging last week about how smooth the convention was this year because of it’s scripting. She described a time when voting would go until 3 am in a contested convention, before a nominee was chosen, and now we were done by 11pm. Everything she saw as a positive for this convention I saw as the death of our democracy.

So truly, I am asking, how do I move forward when I can’t get back into the Matrix? How do I move forward when talking about the DNC still causes me to cry? How do I forget:

Wikileaks

Election Fraud

Voter Suppression

Trans-Pacific Partnership

The Oligarchy Our Country Has Become

Corruption of Corporations, Government, and Media Collusion

Citizens United

Crippling Student Loan Debt

Prison for Marijuana But Raises for Wall Street

Starvation of Working for Minimum Wage

Fracking

Prisons for Profit

Education for Profit

Healthcare for Profit

Black Lives Matter

Censorship

Militarized Police Forces

Climate Change

FBI Investigations

Clinton Foundation

Ignoring the Needs of Delegates That Needed ADA Accommodations

Two-Party Stranglehold Creating The Lesser Of Two Evils Mentality

Standing Rock Reservation and the Dakota Access Pipeline

Endless Wars…

I could go on, but would it make a difference? Just know, that I am not okay. I am struggling with daily life because of the crushing weight of what I have seen and learned. I understand why our country has become so complacent to accept the way it is. We have been beaten into submission and forgotten our rights. We don’t remember that the government works for us, and our vote is our voice.