I'm too emotionally drained to keep reading the disappointed and rightfully angry blocks of text on my Facebook feed, pleading for everyone to keep their endangered friends and families in their thoughts and prayers. I understand your pain. It hurts to see that the country we live in has let us down, either by directly supporting an icon of hate and fear, or indirectly by opting to remain silent. I'm one of the millions that dreaded a Trump presidency above all for fear of more open persecution and discrimination against many, many of my loved ones, and myself as well.

I'm queer. I'm the daughter of a pair of Mexican immigrants. I'm mentally ill.

I wish I could sleep as easily as those without reason to fear for their lives. To have the privilege to live in blissful ignorance, to have such selective hearing that they ignore our cries of distress, to think that we're simply sore losers and nothing more...

Isn't it scary to live like that? To see your neighbors, your classmates, your fellow church-goers, your cashiers and baristas, your co-workers, solemn, fearful, and all because you chose not to vote? Or because you claim that you don't hate minorities, but in the three seconds it took you to bubble in your preferred candidate, you didn't stop to consider their safety, but instead morals that could have been addressed another day? Do you feel nothing for them? Is that what you believe your god would have wanted you to do?

I'm scared, but I'm also exhausted. I wonder if I can sleep for four years and wake up when the US is given another opportunity. Then again, I'll have to be awake for the mid-term elections in 2018. Maybe when I wake up, California will have gained independence. Or maybe it'll all have just been a horrible nightmare.

I know times are tough. I'm trying not to be too openly cynical. I'm not doing so well, but I hope the rest of you are managing better than I am at keeping your heads held high and not cowering in fear. If anything, now is the time to try to thrive and remain positive if only out of spite. Take your safety into your own hands should you feel threatened. Pick and choose your fights. If you can, try to get groups of friends together to go to commonly-visited places; there's power in numbers.

And if you're in a position of privilege... Please protect the women in your life. Protect survivors (of all genders) of sexual assault. Protect the LGBTQ+ individuals; especially the youths terrified of the possibility of publicly funded conversion therapy. Protect immigrants and their families who are all working so hard to make a better life for their children and their children's children in this land of opportunity. Protect Latinx people and the Dreamers. Protect Muslims and their right for women wear their hijabs without judgement. Protect black people, and remind everyone that, yes: Black Lives Matter! Protect disabled people. Protect the mentally ill people in your lives. Use your privilege to their advantage by boosting their voices. Hand them the mic when you find yourself holding it. Defend them if you witness discrimination. Please.

Every day has been an uphill battle. From this point on for the next four years it'll be uphill both ways in knee-deep snow, but if we've made it this far... Then that's gotta be a testament to our resilience, right?

We are allowed to take some time to mourn, however, we must work quickly to get back on our feet to formulate a new strategy. This battle's lost, but the war is nowhere near over. This is history in the making, and we must be louder than ever if we'd like to make our voices heard.