There was no Wicked Wednesday this week, and there probably won’t be much here until Monday. After seeing the election results on Wednesday morning (Tuesday night in the States), I couldn’t stomach doing business as usual. I didn’t feel like business as usual. I’m taking some time to come to grasps with what has happened.

I’ve spent much of the past couple days feeling… well, feeling a lot. Grateful that I live in a country that will never take my publicly-funded health care away even though I’m in immigrant, but sad that I have friends at home who are truly terrified that theirs will be.

I feel jaded with the political system, but still immensely privileged that I can have a say in my government – no matter how small that say is. We have a misogynist as our president elect, but we almost had our first woman president. She even won the popular vote. Our real first woman president? She’s out there, and I can’t wait.

But most of all, I feel so much love. And with wounds that run as deep as the ones in this country, love and empathy are the only things that can get us out of this mess. I love the women and girls back home who are fighting for their rights, the protesters at the pipeline in North Dakota, I even love the people that voted for him – I’m so sorry that you felt so alone and unheard.

I look forward to the future, America. We can only get things done if we work together – let’s aim for something better.