Poppy and her friends were emailing each other practically all night on Tuesday, first with hopeful messages and then increasingly with disbelief and fear. But eventually they came back to hope, because they figured it out before I did: We can get through this.

I spent a good deal of yesterday crying or trying not to cry. Not because my side lost but because the future looked so angry and bleak and so dangerous for so many people, and because the kind, generous America in my head turned out to be an illusion. I felt betrayed, and I was scared. I read about what to do now and about how to talk to your kids about the election. I grieved with friends who have more to fear from this rising tide of anger.

Then in the evening we went to a poetry reading and then out for drinks and dessert with good friends. And it helped me to remember that we are still ourselves. The world may not be turning the way we’d like right now, but we’re still here, and we can do everything we can to Make America Kind Again. So today I’m laughing at my sweet, summer child self (see: Area Liberal No Longer Recognizes Fanciful, Wildly Inaccurate Mental Picture Of Country He Lives In) and preparing for winter by looking for ways to help.

I don’t know what the next four years holds. But I do know this: The only thing I can control is how I react to the situation.