On November 8, I sat in the student center surrounded by my fellow students. CNN was being live-streamed and projected on the wall, and I nervously knitted to keep my hands busy. My Hillary pin was (and still is) proudly displayed on my scarf, and the once-blank map of the United States in front of me was half colored-in by red and blue crayons. Before it was over, around 11:30, I knew that I had to leave. I couldn’t sit in a room surrounded by strangers while I was watching this happen to my country.

I got back to my dorm and I decided I would turn off my phone. Sleeping seemed like the only logical answer because I didn’t want to be awake when it happened. Alas, I’d started crying on the way back, and this continued as I thought about what had to have happened in this world for Trump to have come so far. I texted my teachers to thank them for what they’ve done for their students, myself included, and my friends because I didn’t want to be alone. When it became official I got out of bed and cried on the couch next to my suite-mates.

I woke up the next day to a world which felt very different than the night before. I genuinely believed that the glass ceiling was about to be shattered and that this would be the beginning of an era where young girls and women could finally be shown that they matter. Because you know what? Being told that we can do anything doesn’t hold any significance until somebody proves it. Because when a woman who happens to be one of the most qualified candidates in American history can be defeated a man with no political experience spewing hate, it becomes increasingly more difficult to believe that we hold as much importance as our male companions. For the first time in my life, I woke up in a country that has betrayed me. I was reminded that my existence as a young, queer woman holds no value to many people in this country. I will soon be inherently less than my little brother or my straight friends.

The hardship I didn’t expect to encounter is the fact that people around me are OK. When my friends say that they “don’t follow politics, so now they’re just going to wait to see what happens before getting upset,” I have to bite my tongue because I know that not caring about politics is not the same as not caring about me, or anybody else. I find it troubling that they don’t care because the president of our country affects every one of us, but ultimately going into this with an open heart is what we should all be trying to do. I don’t think I’m succeeding, but it’s what I’m trying to do.

I’ve had to remind myself that it’s okay to smile. It’s okay to laugh. Equally important is the fact that other people are also allowed to be happy. I’m allowed to feel broken and scared and still enjoy my favorite music. Everybody is handling this differently. As my suite-mates were angrily watching Trump’s numbers go up, I cried. I wish I were angry. I wish I could stand up and argue and fight against the world, but I just couldn’t do that in that moment of time. Instead, I’m saddened by the decisions of my fellow Americans, and by what is yet to come. My heart is broken and my faith in humanity is crumbling, but I’m not angry. I’m saddened by the fact that so many people, 59,427,652 to be exact, are okay with a president who degrades women and has threatened the safety of millions of people. I’m saddened that people prioritized their own political statements (e.g. “Bernie or Bust”) over the safety of said people and that the electoral college has failed us. I know that I will be angry eventually, but right now I’m just broken.

I also don’t have to smile. After sitting through a class with a professor who was “looking for the silver lining,” I remembered that I don’t have to do that. We’re allowed to fear for our country and friends, and we’re allowed to mourn what could have been. While people I love dearly have sent “words of encouragement,” I’ve embraced the heartbreak. That’s not to say that we should spend the rest of our lives wallowing in misery, but for right now, we can feel pain. This is difficult in part because this election means something different for everyone. To me, it means that I may be able to legally rent a car before I can get married. I know that decision for marriage equality was made by the Supreme Court and that they very rarely go back on their decisions, but at this point, we don’t know what’s going to happen. Mike Pence adamantly opposes marriage equality and anti-discrimination policies, and Trump wouldn’t have chosen him as a running-mate if he didn’t agree at least to some extent.

Some people have far more to lose under his control than others—there are first-generation immigrant children in our country who are terrified of their parents being sent “back.” There are Muslim women who are too scared for their own safety to wear the hijab and black people who are being harassed and attacked on the street. There are white, cis, straight men who don’t really understand why this election hurts the way that it does. Of course, that’s not to say that everybody who meets those qualifiers is ignorant about the issues at hand, but they do exist and having to justify our pain only makes it worse.

I will never be OK with what has happened. We will get through this, however long it takes, but it will never be OK. It will never be OK that misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia thrive so intensely in this country. It will never be OK that people who once felt safe in this country are now genuinely fearing their livelihood and safety. Even when Trump is no longer in office, we will all have to live with the knowledge that our country let this happen.

Trump is not what scares me most. Trump is one man who happens to be in office. One man can not create damage on a national level. It’s his supporters who scare me. It’s the people who have been enabled by this election and no longer feel that they have to hide their hatred and bigotry. A friend asked last night whether I thought that this is what it would feel like every time an election doesn’t go our way, to which I still say no. Everybody is going to have to live with political leaders with whom they do not agree. That is a fact of life. However, unlike most politicians, Trump being in office evokes fear. To my knowledge, there is not a single issue which Marco Rubio and I agree on. It’s very possible that there are a few which I’ve not read enough about his stances, however, I’ve never agreed with anything I’ve heard from him. That said, he doesn’t scare me. He doesn’t make me fear for the lives of innocent people. The foundation of his campaign was never hate speech, nor do I chose to believe that it would have escalated to that point. Trump’s win broke me, and it’s because I had to look at my country and except that it is full of people who genuinely do not care about the lives of so many other people.

I go to school in Vermont, one of the most liberal states in the country. There was never a doubt in our minds that Vermont would go blue, and I’m honestly surprised that there were as many republican votes as there were. Even in “Bernie-land”, our little liberal bubble where people introduce themselves with their name and preferred pronouns and Black Lives Matter flags are proudly displayed, we have already seen bits of what is running rampant in our country today- Hatred. Swastikas graffitied next to the Hillel House, and people who are genuinely scared for their personal safety. I live outside of Philadelphia and having to see stories of vandalism, hate speech, and violence from the city I consider home pains me more than I can articulate. My friends are scared to come home for Thanksgiving and are having to actively think about safe neighborhoods in which they can take their significant others out on dates. Without even considering other possibilities, a friend of mine decided that their romantic endeavors would be limited to Center City (specifically the Gayborhood, an area in Washington Square West) from this point on.

Knowing that President Obama was able to accomplish so many amazing things during his time in office is what leads myself and other think of him as one of the best presidents in American history. However, Trump will have more power than President Obama ever did. His party holds both the House and Senate, and he will be nominating at least one Supreme Court Justice. This man holds more power than most people could ever hope to even come in contact with, and he has promised that he will use it to undo a lot of the good which was done. Of course, we don’t know whether he will be able to succeed, but we don’t know that he won’t.

To those reading this who want to know what to do next, make noise. Write until you find the words you need to say. Talk to the people around you- the ones you love, and the ones you don’t know yet. Don’t sit by wondering what went wrong, do research and study until you figure it out. I know that I’m not there yet- I couldn’t even begin to explain where we as a country failed to the fullest extent. As Kristin Russo from Everyone is Gay said, “I am not doing my job and I am not standing on the right side of history if I do not scream and bang all the walls in my house until every person sees it, and until every person knows that I will fight back with everything in me.” That is what we need to be doing. Find rallies and peaceful protests, and find people who care just as much, or more than you. Also take care of yourself. Find safe spaces and do things that make you happy, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. Play piano and sob until your hands hurt, draw everything around you, dive head first into your work. Whatever it is that makes us smile is what we need right now, because the unfortunate truth is that this likely isn’t going away anytime soon. I would love it if by some miracle this nightmare ends, but right now we need to heal our souls and fight for the world we want to live in. Spread love and respect throughout your community and make yourself heard.