You know when you have that feeling in your gut telling you something is wrong? The feeling that you try to push away but it ends up staying in the pit of your stomach? You believe in what you want to happen and you stay hopeful, but you know it’s not going to end up like you want.
It’s like when you’re talking to someone and they’re telling you all the things you want to hear. You believe that they’re really the person for you and you’ll end up with your happily ever after, despite the bumps in the road along the way. You have your daydreams about what they’re going to do for you and you spend all of your time wondering just how great you and this person are together. You dedicate your time and effort to this person.
You fight for this person, whether it’s an internal or external battle. Is this person the right one for me? Will my friends accept who they are? Your friends might tell you not to be with them because of their background or what they believe right now. You analyze every little thing they say to you. But you know what? You know that they’re your choice. You’re going to be with them until it’s four years in the future and you meet someone else who will take their place.
So you go for them, you vote for them. On the first Tuesday of November, you know this is a make-or-break decision in your relationship. You wake up on November 8 and you have a gut feeling that your relationship may not last the next 24 hours. But you push it away and you go on with your day, but you can’t because in eight hours this person is going to dump you. You don’t know it yet, but you can feel it. And then eight hours later someone else is winning Florida and you’re on your fourth iced coffee sitting on the floor of someone’s room screaming because the electoral college is breaking up your relationship.
That was the 2016 election for me. I love politics, it’s what I want to do when I grow up, so every four years I have an excuse to be excessively political and call myself educated (that’s only half a joke.) But I think all Hillary Clinton supporters can agree, last Tuesday wasn’t what we expected it to be. The polls were wrong, the media were wrong, it was a hard pill to swallow.
If you’ve never had a break up before, you can relate. Think of a time when your friend broke up with you or when you were really hungry and your waiter walked toward you with food but turned at the last minute and left you in starvation for another 15 minutes or when Zayn left One Direction on that rainy day in March. You can relate to the disappointment. You can relate to the lack of hope many people are feeling. You can relate to wanting to fight to change the outcome of what happened.
Just like any bad breakup, it’s hard to cope. You might spend a few days in your bed crying or sleeping to deal with what’s happening. You might rant to your friends immediately. But there’s a universal truth that intertwines between the election and a bad breakup; everything will be okay in the end.
That phrase isn’t reassuring at all right now, I know. But if you’re confident in who you are and what you believe in, you can change the future. Just like a bad breakup, don’t let it make you feel any less of who you are. If you’re trying to cope, take it slow and work when you’re ready. Work for what you believe in on a small scale and get larger, and in four years you’ll be ready to use what you’ve learned in 2016.
Most importantly, just like any other bad breakup you have to show them you’re the better person. Don’t stand up for bigotry, ignorance and hatred. Stand up for diversity, inclusion and freedom. And always remember love trumps hate.