What Do we do now?

by brooke harrison

I’m writing this on Nov. 7, 2024, the day after the mass grieving that all people who care about humanity experienced. To be completely real with you, I feel insane right now; I’m one dumb Republican speaking to me away from crashing out. 

I had to go to bed early on election night because every time I refreshed the results, I had to murmur “red mirage” to myself over and over again like a soothing mantra so I didn’t cry. I woke up on Nov. 6 with a punch to the gut as I checked my phone for the results and saw that Trump had won. 

Maybe it was naive of me to let myself truly believe that he wouldn't win, that my mom and I would get to see a female president together, or that Project 2025 wouldn't be the next governmental plan, but I did believe it. 

My initial feeling after seeing the results was disbelief. Then, existential dread, hopelessness, and fear set in. I started desperately searching for places I could immigrate to outside of the U.S. and what companies would pay for me to live abroad, but nothing soothed my anxiety in the slightest. 

As a queer person with a uterus, I’m so terrified to know the targets on my community's backs now cover our whole bodies. I mourned with my friends yesterday as we tried to make contingency plans and hugged each other so often but never enough to ease the tightness in our chests. 

Without the sense of community I felt in my apartment and from what I saw other women and queer people posting, I would’ve felt so alone. It already felt so isolating when cis straight men around me didn’t seem to understand why every woman they saw yesterday looked out of it. For many of us, we were forced to go to school and to work, having to act like we were okay when I knew there were moments we just wanted to give up. 

It’s so easy to let yourself get into a defeatist headspace in a time like this, but we can’t. We have to make space for ourselves to breathe and feel happy, but most importantly we have to keep fighting. 

I have always wanted to leave this country more than anything, but while I’m here I know that I can't stop forming a community, protesting, educating myself and others, donating, and more. It is an extremely privileged position to be able to flee a place just because it goes under (a mostly likely authoritarian) new government. I don’t even know if I’ll get that chance myself, but if I do, I think I have to take it.

I’m consumed with thoughts of the future. What once looked so promising is now quite bleak to me, but at least I’m not alone. Even in The Handmaid's Tale, we see how there will always be resistance; revolution will be imminent under any oppressive regime. 

With that being said, we can not rise up against anyone if we are not taking care of ourselves and keeping up our strength. So please take the time you need, take that mental health day, journal or meditate, do whatever brings you peace right now… because that's the thing we need most.