I’m going to get real personal for a minute, and probably delete this later but I’d like to explain what getting rid of Trump meant to me as someone who lives in a red state and comes from a conservative background. There was no dancing in the street where I live.

I was raised Mormon, a culture that was completely Republican and as conservative as you can get. Everyone I spent time with shared the same exact perspective. There were so many rules about how to speak, think, live, vote, what to wear, who to marry, where to go to college even

I followed the rules to a t (good Mormon girl, went to BYU (the only school my parents would help pay for) married another Mormon young, had a baby right away— even though I wanted to go to law school and had in fact been accepted to law school.

But the conveyor belt of expectations pushed me along, and I decided to stay home with babies while my husband went to medical school. I did it, and I love my family and don’t regret it, but damn was I lonely and miserable, constantly feeling trapped and inadequate

I was nearly 30 when I finally broke and said “this isn’t me.” I left the church, I drank coffee (GASP), I started building a career for myself (as a writer. Turns out people outside of my bubble liked what I had to say even though I was just a woman, just a mom!)

Leaving the Mormon faith was also betraying my family, disappointing people I loved. Starting a new worldview. It was terrifying. I thought my marriage would fail (as most do when a nice Mormon wife decides she’s out.) but I couldn’t push my kids along the same conveyor belt

I was lucky that my husband supported me, loved me, even eventually followed me out. He listened to me and was open to growing. But I was no estranged from my culture and community I’d had my whole life.

With leaving the church I began constructing a new worldview, bit by bit. And I started to push back against conservative ideals, I started to feel a deep disdain for white men who only care about themselves and bulldoze their way through life. I cared about the underdogs.

Trump was deeply triggering to me. Call me a snowflake if you want. But he was everything I had tried to throw off my back. And everyone around me (besides a select few) supported him. People who raised me, who loved me, their views were everything that had also crushed me.

I tried to be brave as I was with building myself a new life free of their expectations, and I had my opinions, hell I even posted them onto Facebook feeds full of conservatives. But it was exhausting. Like always swimming upstream. While people on the shore point and laugh

So to see us as a nation finally get rid of Trump was therapeutic to me in a way that goes deeper than politics. To know that these men who act like they are in power, who act like they are invincible and superior, with all their arrogance and ignorance, can be defeated.

I celebrated his loss alone, privately. I wouldn’t say it was happiness so much as it was just a deep relief and validation that I could still find my way. That there could still be progress, however small. That I wasn’t crazy for wanting things like oh, ya know, science.

And watching you all party in the streets made me feel so much less alone. I’ve felt alone for so long. And I know how hard we have to fight for every small step into a new life, a new perspective. It doesn’t all happen at once I know. But this win, it meant a lot to me.

Your kind words and responses mean so much to me! It would have been so much easier to sleepwalk through life, dragged along the current, dulling myself to fit a comfortable familiar box. But authenticity is so rewarding, especially when people “see” me and understand me love