Yesterday, a client asked me if I was nervous about the election results. I replied confidently, with spirit and heart and mind all in a line, and with a smile on my face.

“I’m not nervous at all. I believe in my heart that Hillary Clinton will win the presidency. Because she is qualified and competent, because she stands for positive values, because it is long past time in our history when women had a turn, and because all the polls support her triumph. And I cannot conceive of a world where Donald Trump is the President of the United States.”

Then, hours later, I watched with shock as the poll numbers started to roll in. I couldn’t believe even a few states were going for Trump. Then a few more. And over the next few hours, a deep dread and shock settled into my system as I realized the gap was closing. I stayed awake until nearly 2 am, fighting to fall asleep while the television droned on in the background, waiting with all hope that Hillary would pull out a victory at the end. But she didn’t. The American people, as a majority, voted for Donald Trump as President.

In two months, Donald Trump will be President. President Trump.

I tossed and turned all night, trying to come up with an optimistic view of our future. I’m not sure I can, I thought. My stomach was upset and my head hurt and I kept getting tears in my eyes. I would drift off to sleep for 15 minutes, exhausted, and then wake up for 45 more, my brain spinning and spinning.

To me, this election felt like all our hard work had paid off. All of our years of screaming to be noticed. So many incredible things happened in the last 8 years to give me hope, to make me trust. It’s like I spent 8 years in college and just knew I was going to get into the medical school I applied for. But the letter came back and I was denied entry. And I didn’t have a back-up plan.

I sat down with my sons last night, ages 8 and 5, and we had a conversation about the election, about how girls make great leaders and about how it isn’t okay to be a bully or to do mean things to people. And I so looked forward to showing them that the principles I am teaching them are corrupt, that the bad guys don’t win in the end. And I laid in bed last night in abject fear, not knowing how to have this conversation with them today, about how the bully won.

As I try to take my brain to the big picture, first I go to history. This country was founded on freedom for white men from oppressive religions and taxes. It was also found on the owning of Black people as slaves, the slaughtering of Native Americans, the denial of rights for women, and the heteronormative idea that there is only one way to love. Our most historic moments in the last 200 plus years have all come out of protest and strength: women picketing for the right to vote, black people marching for Civil Rights. We have survived the Depression and the Civil War, Viet Nam and Iraq, Watergate and the AIDS crisis. And I think the disenfranchised have found a voice, a movement in all of that to latch on to, to demand equality and freedom and a place at the table. And none of that changes today. We must still fight and organize and stand tall and lead our lives and demand equality and respect.

I then take my brain to this election itself. And I realize that I’m not sure there is much I/we could have done differently. The votes were close in those key places that would have made history different, like Florida and Pennsylvania. But the public voted for Trump, ignoring the Access Hollywood tapes and the lack of political experience and the mocking and violent rhetoric and the Twitter account, and they seized on Hillary’s Emails and her untrustworthiness. They equated the competent and professional woman with the billionaire reality television star with the rape allegations. I don’t know if there is a single thing that could have turned out differently.

I’m feeling a lot of things as I type this. In the past 12 hours, I have ranged from outraged to devastated to anxious to horrified to exhausted to crushed to baffled to despondent to numb. I remember September 11, 2001, being a young college student and waking up to the news feed as a reporter stood in front of the Twin Towers. On the live news feed, the second plane struck, and I fell back on the couch with an empty pit in my stomach knowing that everything had changed in that split second. I walked around in a daze for hours afterwards. And that’s how I feel today.

I have a friend who once attended an American-themed party in France. The European guests there dressed in baggy flannel shirts and jeans and Duck Dynasty beards, they carried toy guns, they ate popcorn by the handful and drank cheap beer out of plastic cups. They laugh at Americans, the rural white men with Southern drawls who thump Bibles and shame anyone who doesn’t look like them. This morning, I feel like we are an international joke because this is exactly what we look like today. The new president incited violence at rallies, encouraged revolution, and was endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan. Hillary is going to be fine. America isn’t.

All this said, I always fall back on optimism. I expected to wake up this morning to a sunny beautiful day. Instead, it was a massive snowstorm. And I can spend time railing and screaming at the snow as it continues to blanket the earth. Or I can put on my coat and earmuffs and boots and grab my snow shovel and start putting the back work into clearing the sidewalk, knowing I’ll have to do that same work again in a few hours. I can get snow tires put on the car and I can drive more carefully to get to the places I need to go.

In another harsh reality comparison, imagine getting diagnosed with cancer. That is devastating. There will be grief, emotional and physical pain. But there must be a plan of action. A clear understanding with medical professionals about how to move forward with full knowledge about diet and stress levels and sleep patterns and medication routines and social support. If this is cancer, we need a clear path moving forward.

So today, I’m going to hug my sons, and take gulps of fresh air, and I’m going to put one foot in front of the other and walk forward as I grieve. Because the next four years are going to be the worst reality television show ever made, and I have a life to live.