Hello, friends. I haven’t had much luck willing myself to write as of late, but I felt compelled to do so following the 2024 election results. 

I’ve tried my best to abstain from talking about politics on my blog, but because it’s mine and because it’s a place where I hope to encapsulate every moment, every feeling, of my twenties, I wanted to capture this specific kind of emotional turmoil on here, a few days after the results have been unveiled. 

Say what you will about the Democratic party, about faux-progressivism, about “libbing out.” I, too, went into the election and even came out of it with a bad taste in my mouth about the Democrats and the ways in which we were failed by the party. 

But seriously, all political analyses aside, at the end of the day it was sadly the mere fact that the Democrats ran with a female candidate that we are in the position we are today. 

I’ve seen it all. All of the ifs ands and buts. If only she had run a better campaign. Her plans were vague, uninspired. She looks like she’s reading from a teleprompter every time she delivers a speech. And her laugh is so annoying.

A woman is expected to outperform perfection, and she will still come out short. Every. Single. Time. And then, even though she’s the one who has been wronged at the end of the day, she must still put her best face forward, tell everyone we’re going to be okay, and apologize for the way they must be feeling. All traits that I both love and despise about the expectations of womanhood.  

Perhaps naïvely, I believed in my heart that we were about to elect the first woman to be president — and the first Black, South Asian woman at that. 

I first believed we would see a woman win the presidency deeply and passionately as a sixteen-year-old marching in the streets of D.C. with a silly little pussy hat on my head. Sure, we can intellectualize the women’s march all we want to, call it a white women’s march, a feigned display of liberalism, which is probably true, considering the way white women voted in that election cycle (and continue to vote — well done, ladies). 

But, just for a moment, all of that aside again. While there, I saw a sign that both touched and then later broke me after the election results: A small, little girl sat next to her older brother and held up, “I can be President.” Her smile shone bright, and even though she was perhaps not old enough to read, I could tell that she believed so. Because I did. Because I do. 

My heart breaks for her this week. My heart breaks for the version of myself that asked my mom for a list of the female presidents when I was younger. My heart breaks for every little girl, every young woman, and all of the older women in this country, who perhaps in this lifetime won’t ever get to witness looking at the election results and seeing someone who looked like them. 

Which, by the way, out of the 195 countries that make up our globe, 138 of them have seen a female in their highest position of government. The U.S. loves to pride itself on being a “developed” country — one that is diverse, one that welcomes all voices. You would think that it wouldn’t want to fall behind on a diversity milestone like this one. Alas. 

I also just want to say that I know I am not alone in my quest for representation. I know that I was fortunate to sift through princess books as a girl and see ones who looked like me; I know that I could have pictured myself as main characters in TV shows, as protagonists in movies. 

My heart breaks, especially, for every single woman of color who must fight multiple battles at once – and still be the bravest faces of them all. Every single one of you who mourned multiple losses of representation the day after the Election. Every single one of you whose fellow women — and I’m talking to white women — voted against you. 

Every single one of you who looks at the highest power in our country and understands that it can’t be you. 

At least not yet. 

As women do, as we have done, for centuries, we will clean up this mess, wash off our hands, bite our tongues and straighten up a little taller when we aren’t credited, and we will come back stronger. 

I hope that little girl I saw still believes as much as I do. That’s all we need right now — collectivity and faith.