In first grade, I wrote an entry in my class journal following a prompt about historical figures and our thoughts on some basic elements of our government, including the Executive Office of the President. My entry, dated February 2002, reads:

“Why are there never any girl presidents? It is not fair that there all boys! If I were president I’d change the law and say, ‘girl presidents!’ I’d have my laws and stop the bad people. Yes, it would be nice if I were president.”

So, yes, admittedly my journal entry did take a turn to where I was imagining myself as president, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make here. When I voted this year on October 26, the only person I was imagining as president was Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I have a memory of lying in my bed as a child with my mom beside me. “Will there ever be a woman as president?” I asked her. “Probably not in my lifetime,” she answered, “but maybe in yours.” Last week, my mom told me that she cried a little when she went to participate in early voting at the end of last month and saw Hillary Clinton’s name on the ballot. “I never thought it would happen,” she told me.

Just because Hillary didn’t win the election doesn’t mean that her candidacy and her campaign were for nothing. There hasn’t been a woman president yet, but there almost was. And that woman presidential candidate was one of the most spectacular women in the world. That means something.

As a first grader, I knew that there needed to be someone out there that could protect the interests of me, my girlfriends, and the women in my life who I admire, like my mom. I knew that there needed to be someone who genuinely cared and who wanted to protect all of America from “the bad people.” That’s what being a feminist is—respecting everyone and fighting for equality of conditions so that we can all have the same protections and the same care given to us, not matter our race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation.

I voted for Hillary because I knew that we needed someone who would fight for Americans with kindness, compassion and love. Love is so natural, so human, yet it is complicated, manipulated and mangled by fear and hate and anger. But we don’t have to be afraid of what’s to come. We can be strong, apologize and forgive, and unite together out of love for our country and love for each other.

Hillary isn’t going anywhere. Her campaign messages aren’t going anywhere. Votes for her will remain in history. There are many faces of America, not just the one in the Oval Office. Hillary may not be the face of the first woman president, but she is the face of the America that I still believe in. And that matters more to me.

Let’s carry on the message of her candidacy and trump hate with love.

"Every moment wasted looking back, keeps us from moving forward… In this world and the world of tomorrow, we must go forward together or not at all." – President Hillary Clinton (source)