The last couple of weeks have been daunting, if not downright scary, for a lot of us. A lot of us dreading what will happen starting on January 20. Because the news has not been pleasant thus far, from who will be leading DOGE (and that’s not just a cryptocurrency), as well as the other departments, to the fact that the majority on the hill will likely be the administration’s yes-men.

I also have to laugh that at the fact that January 20 is also MLK, Jr. Day. Talk about sadly ironic. What would MLK think of this forthcoming shitstorm?

Since the day of doom, as I have started to refer to it, earlier in the month, part of me is still just mind blown that this happened. And then hearing reports like teen males yelling “your body, my choice” at teen women at a high school makes me fear that this is just the beginning of what is likely to be the Handmaid’s Tale come to life.

You think I’m exaggerating? Maybe a little. But as much as I want to remain an optimist, I doubt my forecast is not off by much since they’ve already started chipping away at abortion protections and even access to birth control in underhanded and anti-democratic ways. And yet people still cheer for them not realizing that if things go as Project 2025 wants, then this is just the beginning.

Really, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks wondering how we got here and why. I just don’t understand. How people can so easily hate “others” (however they label their “others” and the list is long) while proclaiming so-called “Christian” values. While I no longer claim an affiliation with any religion, I’ve read the book they keep thumping. Apparently we’re reading different books because I don’t remember anything about hate in there.

So, to combat the darkness, I’ve gone full into romance reading mode. I love romance stories because while there are challenges to overcome, in the end, love always wins.

Love. Always. Wins.

When I was much younger, I used to scorn romance books as predictable, trivial fluff. As I’ve aged, and as the world has gotten darker, I’ve realized the inherent beauty and importance in romance stories.

True, there are no surprise endings in romance. And I fully admit, I do read romance stories for the Happily Ever After (HEA). But the ending isn’t the point. The point is the journey. The journey the characters must go one to get to the HEA. The need to root for two people who have issues and quirks and backstories and challenges, just like each one of us. Characters who are not just a lawyer, or unemployed, or single-dad, or rock star. They aren’t just having grown up poor, or as an orphan, or with parents who were addicts, or with parents who rocked wall street. They aren’t just black, or Jewish, or an immigrant, or gay.

They aren’t just one thing.

The beauty of a good romance story is to show us that each person is more than just that one thing. They are the sum of all their experiences. Each one is a person who is complicated and amazing and if we just give them a chance, a chance to learn who they really are beyond that one label, to learn who they are at heart, then maybe, just maybe we find that we love them.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do that in real life too? To see beyond skin deep? To see beyond just one often superficial aspect of a person? If we could find out each one’s backstory, what makes them them, unique and complicated and human.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could recognize that we are all, first and foremost, human? No matter what color are skin is, where our grandparents came from, what language we speak, what god we worship or don’t, or who we love. We are all human.

Sadly, at times like these, when it seems the darkness will just keep getting darker, I curl up in my blanket fort with a cup of tea, wonder why Thanksgiving Eve isn’t a thing, and immerse myself in romances. I need the HEA.

Because don’t we all deserve a HEA?

We are only human after all.