Everything seemed fine, until the bottom fell out.
That’s what’s so hard about this. Or one of the things, at least. It seemed so sudden… like the ground we thought was firm underfoot suddenly gave way, leaving us scrambling to hold onto the crumbling edges over a yawning sink hole that had been eaten away in the Earth right below us.
I was ready for Harris to win even bigger than the polls projected. There were many signs that her opponent had overplayed his hand, that he was in free-fall, that late-breaking voters were breaking for her.
I was also ready for a hard fight – close elections in the swing states, battles to make sure all the votes were counted. A squeaker of an election.
I was even (mostly) ready for a split decision, where Harris lost but we kept the House and/or the Senate.
What I was not ready for was the total and utter capitulation to everything that he stands for, an earthshaking election that was all but called before I went to bed, which was very much later than usual.
There are many reasons that have been advanced for this. We can look at racism or sexism or misogyny. We can talk about GOP complicity, and Mitch McConnell’s fateful decision to throw Trump’s fate to the legal system, and the glacial slowness with which it responded. We can even talk about white women and straight young men, both of which broke heavily for him. But in the end, I’m not sure how most of that mattered, at least not more than the price of eggs.
My instant reactions were disgust, disbelief, and a severe bout of depression. I felt sick to my stomach, paralyzed, barely able to move or even make eye contact with Mark or our friends – we had gone to their house to watch the election, and as they tried to talk around it, to make small talk to cover up the raw horror, I was submerged in an overwhelming sense of fear.
Mark and I went home and talked about it for an hour. Mostly I wanted to know how I was going to get through the night. Through the next day. The next week, month, year. Four more years, if not longer.
My first conscious decision was to not be apart from Mark. While he watched TV to find some distraction, and reached out to friends on messenger, I curled up on the couch next to him, my feet touching his thigh. It was reassuring, that simple touch. I knew as long as we were together, I could go on another hour, another day. We went to bed just before 2 AM, and kept each other close.
Wednesday passed in a blur. We got up late, talked some more, and decided to try to do a few “normal” things. I managed to stay hydrated, eat some food, and met with my therapist, who as a woman of color must have been as broken-hearted as I was about this, although she went to pains not to show it.
Day after day passed, one after another, each one a mix of stunned realization and determined forgetfulness. Now here we are, almost a week out, and I find myself simultaneously working through my anger and grief and needing to put my head in the sand for long intervals, to shut out the slow-grinding news cycle, each notification ding of my phone bringing more pain.
And yet…
I’m not a doomsayer by nature – I was born with an irrepressible streak of optimism that can’t be held down for long. Don’t get me wrong – what just happened was awful, unexpected, and devastating.
But we are still here. We are still breathing. We still love one another. And every morning, the sun still rises outside.
We have no choice. Or rather, we have a stark one. To lay down and give up, or to find a way to go on. We have our friends, our family, our community. Mark and I are lucky to live in a liberal bastion here in California. Is our state perfect? Hell no. But it’s likely one of the safest places to be in the US, at least for the next few years.
I ran across the graphic that accompanies this column other day, and despite the fact that if came from a comic book movie, it really touched me. The one way we will get through this is to show up for each other, in ways both large and small.
So today, it’s all I can do to put one foot in front of the other and get through to bedtime. That’s okay. I am grieving for a country I thought I knew.
Tomorrow, I will start to dream of moving on.
I will be joined by millions and millions of others who don’t want to see it all end like this, who stand up for what we believe in, and who will fight the good fight, one small step at a time. Not because of the idea of what we thought our country was, but because we are under direct threat for being who we are.
So I choose to stand up for my transgender friend who is facing harassment.
I choose to stand up for women who are being told they no longer have control over their own bodies.
I choose to stand up for both my Muslim and Jewish friends. I choose to stand up for migrants who came here hoping for a better life, and who do the work most of us would never do.
I choose to stand up for other gay and lesbian couples who, like us, fear their marriage will be ruled invalid.
I choose to stand up for everyone who is afraid of what’s coming next.
I choose to allow myself to feel love, joy and hope, as necessary fuel to keep going.
I choose all of you.
“On your left.”