A year ago today, the state of Georgia executed a man whose guilt was widely contested. Jen Marlowe, friend and journalist, on what it was like to stand with the Davis family on the last day.

Were they leading him to the execution chamber at this moment? Strapping him to the gurney? Was he saying his last words?

It was over. I left the pen, walked up the small hill to the prison exit and hesitated, momentarily stunned by the militaristic display of over a hundred SWAT team officers. “Keep moving!” an officer barked. I crossed the highway through columns of black-clad full-on riot gear. This human corridor bore no resemblance to the one that wrapped the Davis family in its embrace just a few hours ago.

I pushed through the hundreds of protesters on the other side and sat down on the embankment, alone in the cover of shadow. I did not want anybody to see me break down.

I cried for Troy—for the Davis family—for the state of Georgia, the MacPhail family, and this country. I cried for all of us, as the helicopter circled loudly overhead, blades violently chopping the night sky. 

Powerful.

i’m listening to my roommate hang out with her friends and she’s baking and they’re talking and i’m folding clothes so it’s almost like i’m not here. and they’re talking the way that i guess normal girls do about how their workdays were and how they’re going to get ahead in society and become successful and vote republican and become homemakers. and i never realized that people really thought this way, like about themselves, and how to make themselves better. and they’re all really nice people - actually scratch that, my roommate is a really nice person, i know nothing about these other girls, but they really believe in phrases like ‘people who just sit on the subway need to just get up and get jobs’ and ‘i can vote republican because i don’t need an abortion and i’m not gay.’

this scares me. a lot.

i won’t go into all of the issues i have with these girls’ political and social beliefs, but what scares me is that i know i can’t compete. because i know i don’t want to compete. i know that there are very few places and very few things that give me enough pleasure to fucking devote my life to a job. i know i will never be able to hold down a normal job at a company. i don’t have the mindset. i don’t have the willpower. i don’t have any of that shit.

all i want to do is be free and fucking fix what i can in this world. what gets me excited are the things that get me angry, like writing angry letters and blog posts about things that piss me off to the core. what gets me excited is talking to people and understanding them and helping them to tell their stories because otherwise this world doesn’t care. what gets me excited is exposing and deconstructing the ways that people in this world don’t care. the world doesn’t care. i am realizing this day in and day out of being in new york. people don’t care. to expect that someone who can barely stop themselves from shrieking on the subway should just ‘go work at mcdonald’s’ is sickening.

i want everything i do in life to combat things like that. i want every moment of every day to learn new ways to stand up for what is good and right. because so many people won’t. because so many people can’t. because so many people don’t give two fucks about anything besides themselves and their families.

i want to take a year off and write and understand myself and really finally figure out how to live in this world. because some days i don’t understand why i am here or why anyone is here. sometimes i don’t get why the fuck we’re alive if we all hate each other and walk heads-down with earphones in. i feel like we’re slippery fish-like things sliding past each other in a river and trying to pretend that no one else exists. we are all touching and trying to pretend that like no one else is there. we are all here.

i want to do something where i don’t have to pretend. a lot of life, i’m sure, i know, is pretending, but i can’t do it all the time. it’s painful, and it’s ridiculous, and pointless. it’s not that i don’t want to kiss people’s asses, or do extra work, or stay late, it’s just that i don’t want to do these things when i DON’T GIVE A FUCK. i don’t want to be married to my career unless it’s worth it. unless it’s important. unless it matters, to real human beings, real people, in real life. i don’t know how to pretend otherwise. i can’t, i won’t waste my time. there are better things. and apparently there are a lot of people who can do what i won’t much better - and willingly.

i’m going to make it. i pledge to make it. i pledge to always try.