Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I honestly don’t know

Well, here we are.

Yesterday was a real emotional rollercoaster, and it turns out we’re still strapped in and we can’t stop the ride and it’s making us feel a little sick to our stomachs. This is just how it is now; a low-grade nausea. As a naïve millennial who has surfed a lifetime of privilege waves, I really did not see this coming. But now it’s here. I’ve spent most of my morning looking around and asking the people who’ve been around longer, “What now? What next?”

I know no precedent for this kind of thing. Realistically, most of us are not about to pack up and move to Sweden or Canada, at least not in the immediate, short term. But we’re not ruling it out entirely. You’ll hear a lot of palaver over the coming days about how this is The End: of the American Experiment, of Democracy As We Know It, of America. Surely something ended last night, but today we woke up and the dishes are still there in the sink, the kids still have to go to school, and the content machine needs cramming.

But look, you can have today if you need to. Get mad, get dejected, wring your hands until they bleed. Call a friend if you think you’re in danger of falling off the wagon. Call your loved ones and tell them you’re here for them no matter what, because that is what loved ones do. Nurse your headache, medicate your anxiety, scroll through the feeds.

And when you’re done, and you’ve exhausted all your options—when you’ve paced every corner of your home and checked every channel—then you’ll know it’s time. Take some deep breaths, use that British meditation guy if you need to. And then take my sweaty hand and we’ll cross the street together into tomorrow, where we’ll do better, because we have to, because it cannot possibly get worse than the free world deciding to become less free. As David Remnick — one of the only people I trust to put cogent words together right now — writes, “despair is no answer. To combat authoritarianism, to call out lies, to struggle honorably and fiercely in the name of American ideals — that is what is left to do.”

Presidential Election 2016: An American Tragedy

The only way left is forward—onward and upward, away from this mess.