Everyone who voted for Hillary Clinton is having some damn feelings about this election.
Yesterday morning, Iain sent me the below picture with the accompanying message: "This picture reminded me of you this morning, lol! ;-)"
100% accurate. That is how I felt yesterday morning, and all the mornings before it back to last Wednesday. And every moment in between.
And it is because Iain, who is damn despondent himself, has taken such good care of me, just letting me feel however the fuck I'm going to feel after spending every waking moment of the last 18 months trying to prevent this outcome, that I was able to laugh at his sending me that picture. A big, hearty, much-needed laugh.
It would not have been funny, at all, if he failed to realize how much this meant to me. Or if he told me, even once, that everything was going to be okay.
Because I don't feel like it will be. (Neither does he.) And I don't want to hear anyone tell me that it will.
None of this is okay.
But not everyone respects my right to feel that way. And the right of everyone else who feels that way, for however long we're going to feel it. Which may be forever.
They want us to cheer up and stop being so dramatic (OH FUCK OFF) and get over it. Always with the "get over it."
At the moment, I don't find anything about which to be cheerful. I am scared, for myself and others, many of whom lack the privileges I have, and I am angry, and I feel lost.
I don't imagine that I will never experience another moment of incandescent joy in my life, nor important victories, nor other good things. But something has been upended that cannot be easily righted, and I'm not going to feel okay about the fact that every breath in my chest just got a little tighter.
And they were already pretty tight, even before this.
I know how to live in a space of survival. And I will persevere, for as long as the fates allow. That does not require me to concede that everything will be okay.
And, at least in this space, it's okay if you don't feel like everything will be okay, too.
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