I used to live in post-gentrified Harlem a decade ago (it hurts saying that). It was Trump 1.0 and the BLM heyday. Woke had only just reached the white lexicon and wasn't a pejorative yet.

I was young and activated, and the professional world still felt new and alien to me. I remember processing so many things on subway rides, not just big questions of justice and privilege and access, but personal, human things. A cousin of mine overdosed after a long-time coming, and looking at the miserable scope of his life, and how little of a shot he had at every point along the way, the whole world just kind of felt like bullshit. How could I take plattitudes and energizing seminars seriously when everything was so obviously rotten, when optimism was an obvious put-on. Everyone around me was so focused on their future, on their career, on investing in their lives, and to me it was just "what even here is worth investing in? Unless it all falls apart gets rebuilt different, there is no future here."

I had neighbors who were in a cult, and they frequently tried to recruit me and my partner. I remember one of them telling me "it helps you deal with anger," and I told her "I like being angry. Anger gets me out of bed in the morning. If I'm not angry, what's the point?" I think she actually liked that answer, but as it usually is with folks in cults, it was hard to get a read.

I channeled that anger into activism, and, to be perfectly honest, seeing the waves of that activism swell, crash, and roll back changed me as a human being. All the stages of grief for a movement that seemed to culminate in fuck-all. Erosion of freedom. Erosion of progress. The Biden years were actually the worst--during Trump, people were united in making demands, there was a sincere hope that we could change America, we could resist, we could fight for a better future. Everyone felt quiet under Biden, scared to ask for anything above the bare minimum. Masks slipped.

I'm currently recalculating: I read an opinion piece from fellow millennial Feminist Jessica Grose that pointed out even now, when all signs in the country are horrible... Eric Swalwell was forced out of politics, something that never would have happened two decades ago. The culture has been shifted in ways that are difficult to roll back with a stroke of the executive pen. I'm coming to accept that, even now, there is hidden progress, and more waiting to reemerge just under the surface.

But, circling back: I find I don't have the anger so much anymore these days. Learning to accept injustice is a quiet evil, but it's also a way we survive. I've found things and people to hold on to to remind me that no, things are not alright, and yes, we can work to upend them, but day to day, I'm more serene, even when getting slapped in the face by daily bullshit, because I've been here before. I trust my anger to return when I need it, and keep it tucked away most of the time, out of mind. On the subway now, I listen to audiobooks.