Half the country is mad, upset, hurt and scared right now. As we watched the electoral votes increase for Donald Trump we panicked, we felt helpless. I panicked because I didn’t ask for this, because my friends did ask for this, and it didn’t feel like our country.

Then I watched the Johnson votes increase, and the Stein votes increase, and that’s when I realized that some of my friends did ask for this, and I let them.

Right now there is a lot of blame going around for how this could have happened. I’m not going to tell you not to blame people, I’m not going to tell you how to accept this, I’m not going to tell you how to heal because I don’t know how to heal or accept this outcome. I’m more scared than I ever have been in my life. I’m scared to be a woman, I’m scared to be a scientist, I’m scared to be a college student, and I’m bit scared to be a citizen of this country. Most of all, I still feel helpless and hopeless.

I can't change what other voters did. I can still control what I did though. I still have control of me. I may not have control of the election, but here are things I do have control of, to help me feel a bit less helpless, in such a scary world.

It wouldn’t have swung the election. It wouldn't have likely made any difference at all; but these are things that I do control.

1. I could have volunteered for Clinton's campaign.

I was too busy with my own priorities and I thought Clinton had enough volunteers, I didn’t really think we could lose, I thought Trump was a joke.

2. I could have spoken out against Trump.

I didn’t speak for him either. I didn’t joke about him, but I also didn’t speak about how much he disgusted me and made me uncomfortable with people other than ones I knew felt the same way. We are told to be kind and respectful of other people’s opinions, but seeing Trump being elected made me realize too many people in this country have unkind and disrespectful opinions of women and minority groups. I think it’s okay not to be especially kind to unkind opinions, and next time someone says: “Supporting Trump doesn’t make me a sexist”, I will respond: “Yes it does. By saying he is fit to be president you are condoning his actions. You may not be as openly sexist as he is, but you aren’t free to declare you are completely respectful of women and our rights. You make me feel like “Making America Great Again” is more important than my basic rights. America has never been greater for women than it has been the past eight years. ” I will not hold my tongue again. It might not change anyone’s opinion, but it also might make one person in the room think a bit harder about their actions.

3. I could have made a statement in a way I knew how.

I could have made art. I could have used the Odyssey to talk about all the things I hated about Trump and loved about Hillary. I could created a series of photographs. I could have expressed my feeling with art.

4. I could have defended Hillary Clinton. Every time.

Last night my friend told me: “We have to have those hard conversations.” I think nothing could be truer. We don’t want to step on people’s toes, we don’t want to offend them, we want to get on with our day and not lose any friends. This is especially true as women, because we know what they'll call us. This is how we elected Trump. We only talk about politics with those who share our views. It’s a common courtesy in our society but it’s not always the best courtesy. Sure, maybe thanksgiving dinner with your parents and extended family and their families isn’t the ideal place to discuss the political situation of the United States. I however know that I heard too many times “I’m voting for a third party candidate because I don’t like Hillary Clinton or Trump.” and brushed it off. At least they aren't voting for Trump, I thought. "Yeah, but I mean Hillary isn't that bad." I'd respond, and the conversation would move on. I wish now that every time I heard that I had said "Why? Why don’t you like Hillary Clinton?" If the person then went on to discuss how distrustful she is and all the conspiracy theories about her, I could have told them that information is false. I could have told them there is a lot of bad information floating around about each candidate; information that isn’t true. I could have told them to look up accurate information and really understand the candidates. I could have told them to look at polls. I could have explained that both candidates are close and that individual votes might really matter in this election. I wish I told them that there are less detrimental ways to protest the political system if that's why they are casting a third party vote. I could tell them that even though they want to vote for the candidate they identify best with, now might not be the right election. Now might be the election to vote for the one of two realistic candidates so we avoid putting the most despised candidate in the white house. And I could tell them what an outstanding women and candidate Hillary Clinton is, and how little baggage she truly has compared to most. I could tell them how honored we should be to have her as our president.

And every time anyone said anything negative about Hillary Clinton, I wish I would have ruthlessly defended her. Anything negative said about her I am confident I could disputed, but I didn’t because I didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes.

If I had done all these things, maybe no one would have been swayed, or maybe a few people would have thought a littler harder. Maybe a few people would have silently left and had the same conversation with someone the next day.

None of us may have control of the situation; but none of us are completely helpless either.