I Thought the Future Would Be Different

 Sometimes I think about the future more than I should.

Not in the way people usually mean when they ask where I see myself in five or ten years. I don't imagine a career, a house, or even a specific version of my life. I never really did. But whatever I imagined adulthood would be, it certainly wasn't this.

When I was younger, I thought some things were simply true. I thought that if a woman didn't want to continue a pregnancy, she could choose not to. It seemed obvious to me that people had autonomy over their own bodies. Then I grew up and realized that wasn't true everywhere. Even worse, it wasn't something everyone agreed should be true.

That realization stayed with me.

Then I started reading about Afghanistan.

At first, my reaction was the same one I think a lot of people have: That could never happen here.

But eventually another thought replaced it.

What if it could?

I wish I could say that thought disappeared. It didn't. Once you realize that rights can be taken away somewhere, it's impossible to keep believing they'll always exist everywhere. The certainty is gone.

Lately, every time I hear about another debate surrounding women's rights or reproductive rights, I don't just think about that specific issue. I think about how easily we convince ourselves that progress only moves in one direction.

I don't think that's true anymore.

What scares me most isn't one dramatic event. It's the possibility of countless small changes that people slowly learn to live with. One exception. One restriction. One compromise. Then another. And another. Until one day we look back and wonder when everything became different.

History rarely announces itself while it's happening.

Something that hurts to think about is that the rights many of us grew up with didn't appear out of nowhere. Ordinary women spent years, sometimes their entire lives, fighting for them. They weren't guaranteed. They were earned.

And somehow, I think we've started treating them as if they were permanent.

Sometimes I feel guilty for how afraid I am.

When people talk about fighting, I wish my first reaction were bravery. I wish I immediately felt determined and ready to stand my ground. Instead, I feel terrified. Not because I don't care, but because I never imagined I'd have to defend things that I thought were already mine.

Maybe that's selfish.

Or maybe it's just grief.

I don't know what the future looks like anymore. I don't know whether my fears will ever become reality. I hope they don't.

But hope isn't certainty.

And I think that's the hardest part.

Knowing that rights aren't only won.

They're also lost.