Last night, before drifting off to sleep, I repeated the words “President Trump, President Trump,” hoping that if I kept saying it, it would start to feel real and acceptable.  It didn’t work.

In the past 36 hours, I have felt many things.  Anger, disappointment, numbness, but most of all, I have felt sad and scared.  Driving home on Tuesday, I told Joey that I had not even considered the possibility of Hillary not winning and that I maybe should have so I wouldn’t feel completely blindsided in the event of defeat.  But even after that, I didn’t actually believe it could happen.

I couldn’t write this yesterday.  It was all too real and raw.  Simply put, I was inconsolable. So even though I went to work and put on my best face, inside — and at times, outside, because let’s be real, I did not make it through that concession speech without tears —  I was heartbroken.  For Hillary, who spent her entire life working towards this and for myself and the millions who felt she was our candidate, our champion, our answer to the glass ceiling.

I’m trying not to take it personally, but it feels so personal.  Joey, being the world’s biggest optimist, keeps trying to tell me that people were so hell bent on having a president that wasn’t “part of the system” that they were willing to overlook all the heinous things that have been said and done by Trump.  You will never convince me of this.  You will never make me understand it.

For eight years, I have so easily been able to point to President Obama as the epitome of grace, class, kindness and intelligence.  Whether or not you agree with his politics, who he is as a person, is undeniable.  I’m so sad that we are following up his presidency with this.  With someone who seems to have brought out the worst things that exist in this country.  This is bigger than just the exchange of power.  It’s more than being upset that “my team” didn’t win.

I am doing my best to be hopeful.  Honestly, I am.  The unknown frightens me like no other and it is all too easy to jump to (hopefully) far off extremes, but I’m taking solace in the fact that I’m not alone in feeling this way.  Not by a long shot.  I read and heard and saw so many things yesterday — including the words of my parents, who I had dinner with last night and feel semi-healed from — that made me know how wide-spread this feeling is.

I heard somewhere that it takes the brain three days to adapt when the world gets turned upside down.  I’m hoping it’s true and that’s as long as it takes.