I started preparing for the night early in the day, checking in with the closing polls. Hawaii being 5 hours behind the East Coast, by the time the Officer would pick me up at 4:30 p.m. I was hoping we would be close to celebrating a Democratic victory. Back when we met in April we bonded, me a Democrat, he a Republican, over our distaste of Trump. At that time I was feeling the Bern but on election night we both wanted HRC to win. I picked out a blue shirt to wear but as we headed to an election party just a few blocks down the Ala Wai canal in the late afternoon, I was very nervous. He was reassuring me.
Sitting at the table of his military friends, pouring in glasses of wine, one of them said, with sadness, cheers to the last moments of freedom. I responded, come on, it will not happen, he cannot win. But as the night went on and we all got drunker and drunker and more results started coming in, the reality of Trump presidency started taking more shape. Out of sorts, I asked the Officer if we could leave the party. On the way to his apartment, I checked-in with my emotions running high during the much needed breathing room from the TV screen. But later on, when it was just the two of us and the Trump win announced, I was hysterical. I could not breathe. Everything seemed closing in. I did not believe I was in my body. I wanted to jump out of it, and playing I wanted to stay on the other side of the balcony railing. On the other side of reality, the one that had just passed into history.
Awaking in the middle of the night, as if from a bad dream, the Officer told me, yes, Trump did win. We watched some of his acceptance speech. It did not seem real. We went back to bed. He left for work and I did what President Obama would tell his daughter not to do, I got into the fetal position. I stayed like that for most of the day. As night again came, I only had a wish of romance and choosing love. We did not talk of the election, dressed in DxDp Marysol gifted Sleepless in Seattle t-shirts we ordered pizza and watched that old good-hearted movie. I shifted back the focus to my life and the wonderful man next to me, knowing though that I will have to devise a plan of action for the present.
Almost a month has passed since the election. I still think it was the most catastrophic day in political elections of my voting life, its full implications still to be seen. I know that we will have to fight for truth and justice like never before. And I also know that I will not be jumping outside of myself, into the abyss of sadness or the fantasy but instead into fully confident authenticity of the moment.