I’m With Her
I am heartbroken today. It feels like the kind of heartbreak that comes at the end of a long relationship that has finally dissolved, the kind that makes you numb and empty, a fugue state. This woman, this role model, I’ve looked to for strength and wisdom for so long experienced a devastating loss last night, and so many of us feel as though we have lost the race, too. That through all of this, through how far we’ve come in the world, the guy with the awful, hateful, spewing rhetoric still won in the end. We tell children, our students, that words matter and that how we treat others matters, and yet what we saw for the last 15 months, the misogyny and the xenophobia and the hatefulness, still won last night. I don’t know who we are.Â
She is not perfect. Nor is he. Nor am I. Few are. But she was a role model to me, a woman who, even with tremendous flaws, helped me to believe that we really are stronger together. She helped me to care deeply and passionately about things, and my eyes fill with tears again and again as I write this, knowing that, at least today, at least this year, her time still hasn’t come. I am 40, and for the first time in my life, I really do question whether I will ever see a female president in the White House. I wonder if there will ever not be a double standard for women. I wonder if men who are scared will ever stop drowning out the voices of women. These feel like harsh words for me. I never stopped believing that Hillary Rodham Clinton would be our President. She sent a letter today to any of us who have ever given her any sort of support; I sobbed as I read it, sharing it with a close friend, and I keep coming back to this line:Â
Our campaign was never about one person or even one election. It was about the country we love -- and about building an America that’s hopeful, inclusive, and big-hearted.
I have to believe that. I have to get back to feeling that way again. And until I do, I’m still - will always be - with her. #imwithher #withhersince1992