OPINION | After the Election, Finding Hope in a Murky Future

“The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think,” Virginia Woolf once wrote. In the days since the presidential election, I’ve been coming back to this idea: That the murkiness of the future is also a container for possibility, because do we ever really know what’s going to happen to us, or how we’ll feel about it when it does?

As I process the election results we were promised could take weeks to crystallize, but that arrived instead with quick, cutting clarity Tuesday night, I’m not interested in jumping into the what-went-wrong discourse right now. 

Nor am I interested in a reading list, a sex strike, or an entry-level primer on Joining the Resistance. I report on abortion policy every damn day, thank you very much. I’ve been here. Besides, I think it’s more important right now to take a pause, to have a moment, to consider what we feel and how we can care for ourselves and each other as we prepare for what comes next.

Here’s what the recent days surrounding Trump’s presidential victory have been like for me: I spent a tense election night slugging Prosecco and watching the returns with a small group of friends. I wore my “Glamourous women having nervous breakdowns” T-shirt. It was a little too apt.

I went to bed when things were looking bad but not certifiably so, and woke up to an email from my therapist and messages from friends and news push notifications confirming that I had been correct to fret. My high points were texting that morning with people I love, chatting with the cute queer Gen Z kids who work in my neighborhood coffee shop (one told me they were coping after the election by going to therapy and maybe getting their older sister to buy them a new video game; I hope they got it), a visit to my neighborhood bookstore where the employees were being extra kind, videos from my nibling’s ballet class, more videos of friends’ chuckling babies, petting my cat who does not know any of this is happening, and spending time with people I care about, doing things that aren’t just talking about the election.

When you’re an anxiety-prone person like I am, an election like this can be particularly tricky. It is a horrible thing when reality coheres with your worries. It actually doesn’t happen often. The first time for me was in 2016, and I remember a sense of groundlessness that haunted me for weeks after the election of Trump 1.0. I work hard to soothe my catastrophizing thoughts, the nervous little piglet that rides around on a unicycle in my brain hyperfocused on any and all perceived dangers, and when the world seems to affirm the nervous little piglet’s fears, it can be very destabilizing, because what if our anxious brains are actually right about, like, a lot of things?

I don’t feel that way this time around. I am still afraid for all of the people who will be harmed by a Trump 2.0 administration, but my life has changed a lot since 2016. My anxiety can be a nuisance, but as I gain more and more distance from the intensity of my 20s, I know it’s just that nervous little piglet, I’ve made friends with her, and I know that she is trying very hard to protect me, and she’s never turned out to be a very good predictor of anything. My nightmares have never been prophetic. I’m not even very good at guessing the winner of The Bachelor franchise shows. What I’m saying is that sometimes uncertainty is a gift. We are right to be afraid, but, like Woolf said, maybe the future’s darkness isn’t a bad thing. Like Emily Dickinson, perhaps we can dwell in possibility. Or if you want a more punk approach, consider the text on the cover of The Clash’s “Know Your Rights”: “The future is unwritten.”

As for me, nothing clarifies the importance of local politics like covering abortion policy, and after Dobbs, my shock threshold is high. For the last two presidential elections, I worked in newsrooms, overextended and exhausted. I did not have the luxury of reporting primarily on reproductive rights. But in 2021, I made a different choice. I decided that my expertise on this issue was needed, and that if I had to work without the institutional support of a newsroom position to make it my livelihood, I would. I am ready to continue this work under Trump 2.0.

But I am equally grateful to the people and places that make me feel human again when the weight of politics and their bearing on my professional life feel too heavy a load to carry solo.

The Sunday after the election, I drove to Lincoln Park in the late afternoon to meet an old friend I hadn’t seen since the birth of her baby, a tiny new human with a thousand-yard stare and a laugh that makes me feel like nothing could ever be wrong in the world, even though I know better.

We met at the playground near Colman Pool, and chatted off and on as we watched her daughter crawl over damp wood chips, lean forward fearlessly in a baby swing, and peer over at us through a large clear plastic bubble in the play structure, breaking out into laughter when I tapped out a greeting between us.

My friend and I wandered along the path next to Puget Sound afterward, the baby asleep on her chest as the sun slowly dropped behind the clouds, the shreds of the day dissolving against the mountains and Vashon Island and the Olympic Peninsula in the distance. As we found and took pictures in front of the large wooden troll next to the pool and hugged goodbye, I found I wasn’t thinking much about the election at all, though I knew I would be.

Every day, I get to report on the most important issue I can possibly think of. That work continues, no matter who’s in the White House.

But for now, I just want you to know that if you, too, are feeling the future’s murkiness, that whatever happens next, I will be right here with you, witnessing and covering it to the best of my ability. We don’t know what will happen. That’s cause for fear, but it’s also where we may find hope. We have each other, and we have a dark expanse ahead of us. We will reveal it as we go. We have no other choice. The election is over, but the future is still unwritten. I keep reminding myself that’s the best thing it can be.

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