After the events of January 6 I grew more and more worried each day as January 20th approached, and then more and more worried as it got closer to noon on the 20th, just expecting something to happen. Worried that the insurrectionists at the Capitol would be pardoned. Worried that something would happen during the inauguration. Worried, worried, worried.

For the first day or two afterwards it hadn’t sunk in that Trump was out of office. I still expected news to break that he did something with his pardon powers to prevent himself, his family, or the insurrectionists at the Capitol from facing justice.

It’s been a few days now but still it doesn’t yet feel like things are back to normal. Maybe because there’s still cabinet members waiting to be confirmed. Maybe because there are rumors about charges against the domestic terrorists being dropped. Maybe because some people are saying that we should just move on. Maybe because my mail is still all screwed up. And that’s not even getting into COVID.

I saw a tweet from someone who said they felt like we were at the point in a monster movie where the characters feel like they’re finally safe and can breathe a sigh of relief and then the monster pops up through the floorboards, and that perfectly described how I’d been feeling. I still feel worried that people are going to escape being held accountable, and just know I won’t feel fully comfortable until I know there are going to be consequences for him, for his family, and for every single person who took one step beyond the first fence line at the Capitol. What those consequences should be… I’m still not quite sure. All I know is there better be something done to deter and prevent what happened from happening again.

Even with knowing there’s been a change in administration it’s hard to fully accept that there’s been a return to competence. The last administration has made me extremely skeptical. (Not that being skeptical about your government is necessarily a bad thing!) I know going from whatever-the-last-four-years was to what-normal-should-be isn’t going to be like flipping a light-switch, but the past four years have done such a number on my normalcy-meter it’s hard to remember what normal feels like.