Today’s post was supposed to be about something else. It was supposed to be about Florida and friendship and magic, the power of sunshine and Mickey Mouse ears and how wonderful it is to find a group of people who love you not just enough to not mock your squealing over Cinderella’s castle but to squeal right along with you. It was supposed to be about the squad, the team of four ladies to which Scout and I belong and which we hold so dear. It was supposed to be about long drives down a rainy highway singing along to “Hamilton” and the Spice Girls or crooning Blink-182 with a cockney accent. It was supposed to be about love and sequins and haunted mansions and the feeling of standing in the middle of a fireworks show with some of your favorite people on earth.

But I’ll be honest: I am tired. I’m exhausted and sad and my spirit feels broken. I’ve spent the past 11 days walking around with a knot in my stomach and a lump in my throat, each day assaulted by a fresh wave of outrage and despair. I wish those words were hyperbolic. I’ll admit there was a tiny part of me that hoped, in those quiet moments before sleep, “Maybe it won’t be as bad as we think. Maybe there’s a heart under all that Cheeto dust that cares about others. Maybe saner voices will prevail.” Instead each day of the current administration has come with fresh punches to the gut, trampling all over the things that I love about this country and spitting on the values that I believe make America great.

I went to the Women’s March in New York, even though I wasn’t supposed to, even though yet another email arrived in my inbox that morning reminding me and my coworkers that the success of our company relies on its employees remaining unbiased. I understand the reasoning behind this prohibition; really, I do. Especially in a time when distrust of the media is so high, it is essential that we not do anything to further damage our perceived credibility. But when the actual morning came, sunny and crisp, I thought about history and I saw all the photos and statuses flooding my screens and I thought, “I will regret it for the rest of my life if, when my kids or grandkids ask what I did when the world spun apart at the seams, all I could say is that I ate scones and looked at art with their Aunt Sadie.

In the crowds that thronged the streets of Midtown, trudging forward slowly, so slowly, one step at a time, I found an unexpected peace. There was no impatience or vitriol. Nobody was rude. Nobody shoved. Instead I found myself exchanging smiles and nods with complete strangers — not an everyday occurrence in this city. We chanted about love and community and democracy, about the value of black lives and immigrant lives and trans lives and climate change and a woman’s right to choose. Someone put a boombox in their window and we boogied our way down the block, marchers calling out requests (mostly for Beyoncé) to our benevolent DJ. There were old folks and young folks, parents with kids and gaggles of friends, people of every skin color and hair color and eye color, every race and gender, every stripe and style. Though our feet ached and our hands grew numb from cold, we marched with determination and resilience. As one of my favorite writers, Cheryl Strayed, put it, at the sister march in Washington, “Yesterday was so sad and it’s still going to be sad tomorrow, but right now, here, we are walking together.” A rainbow of signs floated above our heads, each glance catching yet another instance of creativity or wit or poetic eloquence. And for the first time since the election, I felt hope.

That hope has, I’ll admit, proven slippery. It is a fragile thing, difficult to keep hold of. But I am doing my best not to let it go. It is essential not to let go of one’s outrage. Normalization is a dangerous, even fatal thing. But it is equally important not to relinquish one’s hope. The march, and all the protests and postcard writing campaigns and phone banks and donations since, remind me that there are more of us. Where the election broke my heart and made me feel like my country had betrayed me, that it was not the land I thought I recognized, the resistance that has exploded in the face of injustice and hate has started to heal those cracks. There is still work to be done. And it will be long and hard and more often than not it will be discouraging. It will feel like the tide is against us, like we are slogging through quicksand doomed never to reach land before we drown. But we must remember in those moments that we are not alone.

It doesn’t always have to be a march or a rally or a protest of thousands. Sometimes all it takes is coffee with a friend or a night spent drinking wine and making candles in your living room. But when you happen upon these moments that remind you of what is good in this world, of all the people around you who care, treasure them. Hold them, and yourself, gently. And then take that spark of love and tuck it in your back pocket. We have work to do.

P.S. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and looking for guidance on how to balance self-care with rebellion, I found the article “How to #StayOutraged Without Losing Your Mind: Self-Care Lessons for the Resistance” by Mirah Curzer very helpful. We must take care of ourselves before we can take care of anyone or anything else.