#Alex's internal monologue about Texas is why I feel I have to write him now...

[immortalmuses]

Thoughts on Red, White, & Royal Blue (contains spoilers)

         I finished RWRB the other night and I am... still feeling it like an ache under my skin. As sweet as Alex and Henry are together, regardless of how their enduring relationship gives me warm fuzzies, it wasn't the happily ever after at the book's end that reached down into my chest and pressed on my heart like a fresh bruise.

         I was not expecting Casey to so accurately capture this feeling that I have carried inside me. It comes from being a child of Texas, raised (like so many are) to consider that as a core part of my identity, as much as being of mixed heritage and not conforming to society's sexual or gender norms. It comes from growing into adulthood only to realize that a place you have loved and respected your whole life... doesn't want you. Would rather you die than be your real, authentic self.

         In RWRB, Texas rallies for a mixed race Latinx kid that's been outed as bisexual in the messiest way possible. It turns Blue to elect his mother, a female president with a blended family and progressive policies. I cannot stress to you how much that was... the absolute fantasy pipe-dream that I genuinely thought could have been a reality way back in 2016. As Texans, we stood on the precipice of making the world a better place, of making history. We had every opportunity, between Beto and Hilary and a newly awakened generation of young voters that had seen the good works of an Obama presidency. We came So Close...

         But look at Texas now. Further away than ever from that fictional future. More cruel, more restrictive. Denying women bodily autonomy, denying children gender affirming care, restricting access to voting rights, disproportionately punishing the poor, shoving people back into the fucking Rio Grande to Drown rather than allow them to seek asylum within our borders. Texas has fallen so fast and so far from that moment of potential, I don't know that it can ever recover.

         A year and a half ago, I left Texas. I packed up my life and moved elsewhere because I was heartbroken at what my home-state had become, because I didn't feel safe there anymore, because I saw myself as powerless to do anything about the injustices being paraded throughout the state like they were points of pride. And I miss it, and I hate it, and I'll probably never go back.

         But I can't slough off that part of who I am, I can't banish it to the past like it never mattered, like being a Texan didn't shape me in some ways. I guess reading Casey's words reminded me that even with healing and distance, some part of me will always be that child of Texas, one who wishes they got even a fraction of the political happy ending that Alex Claremont-Diaz got.