Bluebonnets & Backbone

I was raised by a single mother with two brothers. My mom worked incredibly hard, often she was forced to rely on food stamps and government subsidies to make ends meet. When that wasn’t enough, we lived together with my grandmother and aunt in a small parsonage the church provided as free housing.

Growing up, I was fed the usual conservative politics of the time and place. I was pro-life. I was “independent,” because that’s what my mom always said she was. But to my knowledge, she always voted Republican.

I remember having a conversation with her as a pre-teen about Republicans versus Democrats. She gave me a very poignant answer. She was always good at that. She said something like this:

Democrats aren’t bad. They believe in gun control, which is needed, but maybe not in the way Republicans think it should be done. Republicans are fiscally conservative and slash a lot of the programs we need to get by. Democrats fight to help people stay in those programs, even if they don’t necessarily need the help. But those subsidies are meant to be a hand up, not a handout.

That day, a seed was planted.

I went through high school seeing everything through a conservative lens. I watched my country go to war. I watched the Dixie Chicks get canceled before cancel culture was even a term, simply for speaking out against the president’s decision. Over time, I saw public sentiment shift from almost universal support for that war to total repulsion as it dragged on.

By the time Obama came into office, someone I liked despite still considering myself conservative, no one wanted the war anymore. I was just too young to vote for him, but even if I had been old enough, I probably wouldn’t have. My high school history teacher had dissuaded me from voting altogether, insisting no one should vote unless they were informed about every issue.

In 2012, even though I was no longer Republican, I sat out the election. I felt stuck in a quasi-middle place, not unlike where I think most people really sit.

But everything shifted when I had an abortion at nineteen.

I am still thankful for the decision I made all those years ago. I was wise beyond my years, but in no way ready to become a mom. I did not want to bring another baby into a system that already fails so many. Was it a birth control situation? Yes. Was it legal for me to make that choice? Yes. Would I ever do it again? No, unless there were extreme circumstances. It was an absolutely heart-wrenching decision, but I do not regret it.

Leaving that clinic, harboring a secret I knew would be controversial in my family and community, I felt everything in my belief system disintegrate. I could no longer say I was pro-life. I had just done the one thing pro-life was against. I couldn’t call myself Christian anymore, because every time I logged into Facebook, my community was unknowingly calling me a murderer.

All I felt was hate from people who had always loved me. I never knew that love could be so fragile and conditional.

I tried to keep playing the part, but eventually, I couldn’t hold my secret in any longer. When I finally let it out, I learned exactly what they thought of me. I lived in an isolation so deep it threw me into the darkest depression of my life.

Over time, as my skin thickened, I realized I no longer believed in God. I didn’t believe people were good. I didn’t believe there was any purpose to all of this. It sounds dark because it was.

My life began to heal when my husband walked into it in 2015. He was skeptically independent, with a similar point of view. We were both somewhere in the middle, unsure, searching, and questioning.

The 2016 election changed everything.

Bernie Sanders inspired me. Hillary Clinton led the progressive movement. Donald Trump led conservatives down a path so many were having trouble following. We couldn’t play the part anymore.

I wanted Bernie. My husband could not get past Hillary’s handling of Benghazi. But when it came time to vote, I swallowed the biggest blue pill of my life and voted Democrat in my first election. I was so proud to be part of what I believed would be herstory.

Instead, I watched a horror story unfold that week, sitting in shock and tears. I felt the fear in my bones, because even before Donald Trump became the 45th president, I knew he would be the biggest con ever to walk into the Oval Office.

Today, I am not the same person I was back then. My faith has shifted. My politics have shifted. But what has stayed the same is my belief that compassion matters more than party lines, that dignity should never be conditional, and that no one should feel alone for caring too much. That’s why I created Little Blue Texans, so I could finally have a space where empathy is not something to apologize for.