Why I Cried Myself To Sleep

First let me start by saying, I am a proud Democrat. I am a feminist. I am an optimist. I am a mother. I am a wife. I am a daughter, sister, niece, and cousin. I am a loyal friend. Did I mention I'm an eternal optimist.

My dad told us a joke when we were young, about two kids, a pessimist and an optimist at Christmas. The parents gave the pessimist a room full of wonderful toys, to which he remarked that wasn't it a shame they'd all be broken soon. In the optimists room was a box full of manure and a shovel. When they entered the boy was in the box with the shovel digging furiously... "There's got to be a pony in here somewhere."

The joke in our house was always, "did you find that pony yet, Ann?"

Last night, I couldn't understand the visceral effect the returns were having on me. I shut down. I quite literally couldn't talk. I felt a pressure all through my body. I was becoming overwhelmed with a sense of doom and gloom my psyche had not experienced except when my mother died.

Please, don't get me wrong, I've been upset by other elections. Bush Jr.'s reign was such an election. We lived through it. Gas prices soared, our 401K dove, and our condo valuation plummeted (it has come back up from what it bottomed out as in those years). Things were bad, but not awful. We came through it with some bumps and bruises and a few years added on before we'd retire, but it was something from which we could rebound.

But this election... this election gave voice to a section of the country I believed (well, hoped) were long gone or marginalized to such a point as to be ineffectual... our racist, bigoted, mysogynist minority.

This campaign by Mr. Trump, gave a voice to those who fear and hate... and they showed up at the polls.

So when I cried myself to sleep last night, it wasn't because the Democratic candidate lost. It wasn't because the first female candidate lost. It was at the realization that the country I love, support, and defend has a part of it's constituency who live in a world of distrust and fear.

My optimism took a solid punch to the solar plexus and the wind has been knocked out of me. This undercurrent threatens my misplaced beliefs with ideals where attitudes of bullying, racial division, and fear could gain traction again.

I felt weak in the knees, and immensely saddened that we've taken this turn. I feared for my LBGTQ family. I feared for my Muslim family. I feared for my Hispanic & African-American family. I feared for my sisters, progressive women, out there fighting to just remain upwardly moving to equality with my brothers.

But then I stopped. I breathed. And I realized the greater concern here, one that my quasi-elitist self has failed to recognize through all of this, is the sector of our national voice that has felt ignored and isolated for a while now.

So, I am sitting with that realization.

I turn to my core values and I walk in their shoes for a moment. Not the shoes of the KKK or supremacy groups, or those groups who would consider an American version of Nazi Germany, nirvana. I'm talking about those people who respond to the fears thrown at them, who are susceptible to the conspiracy theories, who are afraid of what they don't know, or have never had the opportunity to get to know.

And, for that walk, I understand. And my ego, my pomposity, my self-righteousness are diminished.

Instead of crying, or blaming, or fearing the next 2-4 years... we should be figuring out how this disconnect, this division of compassion came about and presented itself in such a profound way.

I am resolute that our core is good. I believe that in the end, we will help those who cannot help themselves. I believe that our soul as a country has hardened, but that there's room for it to soften again. I believe that MOST people are inherently good, and will rise to the occasion. I believe that we can't run from this, but we need to address it head on.

Misinformation, conspiracy theories, blatant lies, and fear-mongering were the keystones of this turn in our republic...our democracy. But I believe that a majority of us still understand and still want what's best for all.

No one voted yesterday to "ruin the country"... we voted because we love our country, and we voted "for what we believed was the best." The one thing that we all have in common is we love the United States of America, and that we need to work on the United part of that going forward.

I have to have faith in the human heart, and that compassion and love can bring us, ultimately, together again.

I'm still looking for the pony... I will not be deterred!