What's Next?

I hope that this post will be somewhat coherent, but I must admit to being a little shell shocked, still.  In the words of my candidate, this loss hurts and it will for a long time.

This morning, I woke to rain - it was as if Mother Nature herself was weeping along with a majority of this country.  I sat down yesterday evening, prepared to watch this nation elect the first woman president.  All of the evidence, all of the polls, it all pointed to a big Democratic evening.  It started out as expected, with the Republicans jumping out to an early lead.  Then some big electoral prizes stayed "too close to call" for too long.  The night stretched out and when I finally went to bed at 1:30, it was mostly over.  She had the most narrow of paths and it was unlikely that she was going to pull it out. Mrs BA had gone to bed earlier and was physically ill most of the night.  I also woke up feeling sick - unsure about the country I was waking up to.

My immediate problem was what we would say to LBA and to SoBA.  Mrs. BA and I finally decided on something to the extent of, "we've survived bad presidents before and we will do it again."  We urged them to be extra kind to people today as most of the people they would encounter would likely be feeling the same way as their mom and dad.

I tried to stay off Facebook and other social media sites today but I kept returning and saw the whole gamut of reactions: anger, sadness, depression, fear, desperation.  Throughout this campaign, I have encountered Republicans who weren't planning on voting for him.  I also know of some Republicans who did vote for him.  I didn't understand it, but I accepted it.  I just didn't realize there were so many of them.  Or that so many Democrats would stay home in unprecedented numbers.  In a democracy, if you don't vote, you don't get to complain.  If you want something changed, you have to be the agent of change.

So now we have a new agent of change.  I don't know what is going to happen.  I have all of those feelings that my friends have verbalized on Facebook.  I'm going to do the best I can in the coming days, months, and four years ahead.  But I won't stop working to be an agent of change for good.  We will get through this.

I am a Democrat.  I am an American.

Life is too short to hold on to hate and anger for too long.  I'll pick myself up and I'll go forward.  I encourage all of you to come along with me. Together we can make a united America again.