Today, November 9, 2016, has inarguably been one of the most difficult days I’ve ever endured. The election was decided around 2:30am – Donald Trump had won the electoral vote by a slim margin – while I was fitfully sleeping. I awoke to tearful texts from my mother, expressions of rage from my sisters, both of whom voted for the first time yesterday, and feelings of shock and devastation from my female friends worldwide.

I had a hard time facing the day. I had a hard time bringing myself to get up, go to work, and act like business as usual. I wanted to stay in bed in the dark and cry all day – and I was so close to doing so – but then I thought about all the women who suffered so that I could have the privilege to use my voice and vote in such a monumentally important election. I thought about the suffragettes who fought hard and tirelessly for women to earn the right to vote 96 years ago. I thought about my Nana, a smart and tough woman who married outside of her race in the early 1950’s (she is Italian and he was Colombian) without caring about the consequences, a woman who raised five children and influenced the lives of her eight grandchildren, teaching us to always push further, be better. I thought about the trials and tribulations that my own mother has been through, that at 28 I’m just beginning to understand the world that pushed up against her in her youth and adulthood, that she managed to raise three strong and resilient girls who value their minds and bodies over superficiality. I thought about all of my beautiful friends and the support we’d need to give to one another today, of all days. And finally, I thought about Hillary Clinton. She has spent her entire career – 40 years – facing opposition on the basis of gender and through it all she chose to push. She did not come so far and work so hard for me to wallow.

So I got up. I went to work. New York was eerily quiet today. The office was so silent that you could hear a pin drop. No one spoke, but no one had to. At least we were together. I spent my day talking to my friends over text, Google Hangouts, and Facebook Messenger. We were talking in circles, of course. We are all immeasurably upset. We fear for our civil and reproductive rights as women moving forward. We fear for the LGBT community. We fear for people of color. We fear for freedom of the press. We fear for freedom of religion. We fear for freedom of speech. We fear for the economy, for our safety as individuals and as a nation, for our future. We are afraid, afraid, afraid, and the only thing that could help quell these fears, momentarily, was talking through it and checking in on each other.

These are trying times for anyone who isn’t of the white CIS male variety, but we can’t throw our hands in the air and give up. With every expression of emotion today – from “Are you okay?” to “I can’t believe this is happening” – I felt just the smallest amount lighter. I sincerely doubt that this two-ton weight will lift off of my heart any time soon, especially come January, but it is heartening to know that we are in this together. On this small local scale, I have found that I am among a community of women and minorities who are going to work hard to build each other up, and I am hopeful that similar pockets exist throughout the country.

This community doesn’t end with my familiars. I admit that I had to leave work early today because I became too overcome with grief and fear and headed straight to the wine store in my neighborhood. When I walked in, the store associate and the owner were having a wine tasting. The associate asked me how I was doing and I just shrugged. He said he knew how I felt. The owner offered me a taste of the wine and tried to cheer everyone up by saying that at least she won the popular vote. I said, “Somehow that makes this feel worse”.

And they agreed, but another man was there and he tried to mansplain (I know, I hate that term too but it is the most accurate descriptor for this situation) the electoral college to me…incorrectly. He said, “Ah, well the no one knows the origins of the electoral college but they are a necessary evil. Even Britain has one.”

And I said, “Actually they don’t. And the electoral college exists because the founding fathers—“

This is where he interrupted me: “Now, Missy, don’t you go blaming the founding fathers! Don’t bring them into this!”

After this long, long election, I’d had enough of uninformed men trying to explain things that I KNOW to be true to me, so I said VERY LOUDLY, “Actually, the founding fathers put this system in place because the common people were not trusted to make an informed decision on presidential elections.”

That shut him up, and let me be clear: it was not my intention to walk into a store and stampede the people in there. The conversation was happening very naturally and sympathetically until this man decided it should be otherwise. I know that he assumed that because I was in a liquor store at 3:45 on a Wednesday, I must not know what I’m talking about, and I’m proud that I spoke up in this situation.

And here is where this community comes back into focus. While we were talking, a gay man and his partner came into the store for the same reason as myself – to buy wine to drink while trying to wrap their minds around the results of this election. They were both puffy-eyed with grief. One of them approached me, put his hand on my shoulder, and said “How are you doing today?”

The store associate and I both said, “Really not great.” And I told them that I wept openly at my desk during Hillary’s concession speech. The store associate said that he cried a lot last night when the results were coming in, solidifying for him as a black man that Obama was his last best hope for the foreseeable future. The gay man said, “I know. I have been crying on and off all day, since last night. We’re all in this together. We can get through this.”

THIS is what compelled me to write this post today. We are living in a time where we are all in fear for our freedoms and the progress that we want to make and have already made as a country. We are living in this present moment in a state of mourning and abject horror. But we are not alone.

Today, November 9, 2016, has been a very bad day. It has, at times, felt hopeless and bleak. It has filled our national psyche with fear and divisiveness like we’ve never seen before. Hillary Clinton said it perfectly in her eloquently beautiful concession speech:

I’ve had successes and setbacks and sometimes painful ones. Many of you are at the beginning of your professional, public, and political careers — you will have successes and setbacks too.

This loss hurts, but please never stop believing that fighting for what’s right is worth it.

It is, it is worth it.

So let’s keep fighting for what’s right. Tomorrow, November 10, 2016, is a new day. Let’s all rise with purpose. Let’s work together to ensure that our rights and freedoms will never be lost. Let’s do this for ourselves and let’s do this for her.