This week has been a lot for many people. This week has seen a rather momentous shift in what many Americans saw in the hopes of their country and what it stood for to be bashed repeatedly into the side of rocks.

This… this has not been a good week.

As a middle aged white male I am sure you came here to read my thoughts about how much of a cluster f*ck the election turned out to be. I could explain to you the *many* different ways that Harris ran a terrible campaign, and how she didn’t seem to actually focus on the stuff she needed to do to convince people to vote for her. I could even go as far as to show you hook line and sinker about how badly informed people are because of mainstream media intentionally misleading people, and how the media systems and all of its pieces in the pocket of the alt-right are straight lying to people… But to be honest I just don’t have it in me to rehash those same tired information you can get from many different places.

Now for me? I am just more sad for the people that will suffer for these idiotic choices: how my wife is even more of a second class citizen now with even less control of her own body (… and don’t even get me started on the “Your body, my choice,” absolute abhorrent bullshit; If someone utters that phrase around me they will not like my response I do not believe…), immigrants (even those with green cards) are now potentially going to be deported (President Elect Trump has said it has ‘no price tag’ for how much of a deportation he will do), racist text messages being sent to Black Americans all over the country… This just breaks my heart and shows me how bad this country has become. I do my best to be anti-racist, anti-misogynistic, anti-… lots of things. I just currently am at the bottom my barrel of what to do.

People say don’t give up, but when the deck is stacked against you so hard it is difficult to think of what we COULD do in these situations. Protect those who are weaker than you as best as you can. Stand up for the less fortunate. Be the change you hope to see around you. These are all things I say regularly, but goodness am I worried.

Please if you are having real depression, or anxiety about this change, please seek help. If you can’t afford help; there are help lines with people who are free that will listen and try to keep you here with the rest of us. We need everyone to survive this atrocity (many of us didn’t when COVID-19 came through), and then pick up the pieces and see what we can do fix the problems that will have been created. We cannot do that if people check out, leave, and give up.

This message is to all of you: Don’t give up. I keep thinking about it and I keep realizing that I have to keep standing up even when knocked down. It is hard, and keeps getting harder, but if not for me then for those who cannot.

Still though: it has been a hard week, and I hope you are okay.

If all you have done this week is survive: remember; I am proud of you, too.

-Phil