On Tuesday evening I boarded a plane as the polls closed and when I landed and turned on my phone, my body began to ache seeing the election results. It’s been days and sleepless nights since then but I’m still tired, worried, and aching.

For others frightened by this presidency, the response has been for a call to organize, a call for action instead despair, and well-intentioned messages to embrace hope because it will be the only thing to get us through but in reality, I am still in mourning. The plea for action is an honorable one but as much as I advocate for volunteering, donating, organizing, and taking steps to live sustainably, I have never thought individual action can be the solution. I can advocate for immigrants' rights and compost my banana peels but unfortunately, those in power have a much greater ability to be destructive than my individual attempts at conscientiousness. My vote is important to me and so on Tuesday, I lost.

In these next years, I will, of course, organize and hope for the best but I will also like many, live with a fear that never existed before. I will take to the streets and retreat into written words often. The most hopeful of sentiments I can muster at this point is that we move onward still.

Some articles of note, lately:

It’s okay to still be enraged, and yet, one must always understand context.