Nowhere To Go But Up

Well, at least it’s over. No more wondering, worrying, agonizing, nail-biting. Now we know the worst.

I was so sure it was okay. So sure we’d win. As the states on the map turned red one by one, I still thought we had a chance. But when I woke up I knew before I even picked up my phone. The world seemed heavier somehow.

So what now? Now, nothing. Now we grieve. There’s nothing else to do, right? You know how grief works. You have to give it time. You have to mourn, to process, to get used to the new reality. It never goes away, but it becomes part of the burden of daily life. We have to mourn for what could have been, the joyful Inauguration we’ll never get to see.

And we’re angry. Angry at the half of the country that went insane and let us down, that voted for fear and hatred.

And we’re scared.

So what do we do with all that grief, anger, and fear? It will kill us if we hold it inside, so we share it. My instinct is to scroll Facebook, looking for others who are grieving. There are so many of us.

It’s oddly fitting that Election Day is held just as the year is dying and the earth is darkening. These long nights will seem grim and sad.

But time passes. We get used to things. The planet will roll around to the solstice, and the days will get a tiny bit longer. Light will creep back into the world. We’ll slowly straighten up, and look around, and start to think about what comes next. There will be no shortage of battles to fight next year. We’re all exhausted now, we need to rest up and take walks in nature and play with dogs and eat dessert, and stuff like that, for a while, but we’re not done.

We’ll be back.