I’ve been pretty silent on here about the election. Less so on Facebook, which has basically just become a platform for me to share links to political articles and outrages, but I didn’t know what to say when it first happened, and I still don’t know what to say now, a year after his inauguration.

It was really hard for me to get my absentee ballot. You can track it online and my status said delivered, but delivered it was not. There was an emergency number and I got a replacement right in time, but I remember my urgency (other than the normal, civic duty) was that I needed to be able to say I had voted in the election for our first female president. I was embarrassed, especially living abroad, that Donald Trump had gotten as far as he had, but had read the polls and felt little anxiety. The day he won the Republican nomination I stopped feeling any anxiety, actually.

I spent the week talking about the election with my students, and we talked about words like racist, sexist, and predator. Those were the words my elementary school aged children associated with Trump–and I couldn’t blame them because they were the words I associated with him as well.

Because I was in Spain it took forever for news to start coming in. There was talk of arranging an event at a local pinchos bar, but when we realized it would be morning before anything really happened, we decided to stay home. My roommate Shaina and I stayed up until the bitter end, at around 7 in the morning. Even before Florida was called I realized it wasn’t going to be the same as Obama’s election, when his victory had never really looked in jeopardy.

At 7 am it was clear what had happened. I was sobbing, we all were. I called my mom and she had gone to sleep–had slept through it all and was shocked he had won. She was sure I was wrong. How could so many people have chosen to vote for him??

Afterwards I felt depressed, and very far from home. I had thought I was safe, in impossibility of a Trump victory, by living so far from home. But in reality, as soon as he won all I wanted to do was be back in the states, trying to help in any way I could. I still feel that way. I seriously considered leaving Spain and going back to find a campaign or NGO to work for. I think it’s a large part of how I ended up working where I am now.

I remember feeling so afraid. What would happen when Obama left? Who would protect those of us who aren’t white rich middle aged men? Who would lead the country, and join the world in leading important initiatives–the Paris Climate Accord, the Mexico City Policy–so much of the United State’s decisions affect the international landscape. How could we trust all of that to Trump??