Healing ≠ Forgetting

The recall election was two weeks ago. Scott Walker is still governor, we may or may not have more balance of power in the state government, and higher education is still taking hits in terms of budget, quality, and elected officials thinking they know what learning is and how it is best facilitated and evaluated.

Nonetheless, I feel I have done a lot of healing since the recall. Granted, it's easy for me. Now that I am no longer a state employee, I'm not feeling as personally oppressed as I was for a good chunk of 2011. My paycheck does not give me monthly reminders of Act 10, and I am not surrounded by co-workers who are angry, depressed, and overwhelmed by feelings of powerlessness. So for me, healing is a different beast than it is for so many of my friends.

When we are cut, we bleed. Then we heal. Healing never means we go back to the way it was, though. Sometimes we have visible scars. Even when we don't, healing does not erase the experience of having had the injury and the pain. But healing means that we have moved on to a new version of ourselves.

I am relieved that recall season is over. With the continual emphasis on public unions at the expense of the many other pieces of Act 10 and the processes used to implement it, along with the complete lack of a Democratic platform that said anything other than "get rid of Walker" or "restore bargaining rights," defeat was inevitable. Now that the recall vote is over, I fee like I can get on with my life. I am again starting to pay attention to national politics, I'm able to think more intently about specific issues in the state, and I just feel like the burdens of anxiety and waiting have been lifted.

I'm incredibly frustrated by the fact that people are still name-calling and mocking each other. I'm tired of seeing extreme conservatives referred to as "right-wing nut jobs." They are simply passionate about the views with which we disagree. To many of them, those of us who are equally passionate about our ideas are "damn liberals." Seriously, people, try to find some common ground. We have to live and work with each other, so try to find some way to connect. As I stood in the voting line in Waukesha, knowing that most of the people around me would be voting differently than me, I still tried to chat with my neighbors about how it felt to be standing in a grade school in line again and which shows people wanted to see at Summerfest. I have even stopped flipping off every "I Stand with Scott Walker" bumper sticker I see. (Yes, I really did this. For months. But only at a level lower than my car window so no one but me would actually see it.) Healing a breach takes effort, but it is worth it.

The fact that I am doing well post-recall does NOT, however, mean that I have forgotten. I still remember how I felt when I checked my phone during a break at a workshop to see that Walker had put the national guard on alert because of the bomb he was about to drop on February 11, 2011. I will never forget how every Friday, I felt like one of my rights was being threatened.

I look at many of my friends and former colleagues and people I've gotten to know through social media. I think many of them are more healed than they realize as well. They have gotten more involved in their local communities and in taking up the banner to advocate for very specific issues. They have changed and are trying to make their communities and workplaces better places to be. They are new versions of themselves, healed from the immediate injuries done by Walker and the Fitzgerald brothers but able to move forward. Even though we move on with our individual and collective lives and are healed, we will never forget. We already make a difference, even if it's hard to see right now.