Four years ago– my brother and I had raced from our hotel to the metro where we rode to the closest metro stop we could (while avoiding Antifa) and waited in line to get into the mass-entrance public viewing of the inauguration on the Capitol lawn (separate from my friends and ex-boyfriend with better viewing positions from our congress members).

We were at the front of the line holding our tickets at somewhere around 4am. I was so annoyed to be on the lawn, and not in a preferred standing area, but being the competitive person I am, I wanted to make the best of it and we rushed ahead of a crowd of thousands and made it to the very front of the lawn with only a chain link fence in front of us so that nothing could block our view of the Capitol. Even today, when I see pictures I can pick us out in the crowd with a zoomed in camera, because I’d also managed to sneak in a 3×5 Trump flag under my coat. We stood and sat on the sidewalk shivering for hours before witnessing Donald Trump sworn in as the 45th president. It was epic. It was historic. It was amazing.

Later that evening as we collected our things to leave and said goodbye to friends, my brother asked– should we check out the Antifa protesters and see if we could get some videos of them? We knew they were causing trouble. We had seen them escorted out by law enforcement as we avoided the shut down metro stops. For some reason I said no. Maybe it was because he had a fever. Maybe it was because I had only one hour of sleep the night before. Maybe it was the car rental. Maybe it was that I had to work when I got home. Either way, we didn’t (but I’d love to have some documentation on what occurred that night in light of today’s world events)

I still have momentos. I still have memories. It was like nothing I experienced before. Four years later I’ve had many more exciting political experiences, but the Donald J. Trump inauguration was fantastic and I wish I could have enjoyed it again.