Sigh.

What a week.

Just to have a selfish aside for a minute, I started the week with two crappy things happening to me.

And I had an awful feeling that what happened Tuesday would be the third.

I’m just going to write (who knows if it will make sense).

I realize my thoughts are shared by about 50% of Americans, and what I have to say has already been said before (there’s way too much oversharing going on on Facebook).

Once again, I feel like I’m an outsider over here and I crave discussion with Americans.

Also, a lot of my friends back home have been asking what people here think about the election.

My Iranian friend likened it to when Ahmadinejad was elected and Iranians walked around like zombies.

My French friend reads me the French news every morning – and all their stories are about their distrust in Trump.

My German friends are in shock that this could happen, and make comparisons to Hitler.

Everyone is scared after Brexit and now this, that the world is changing; they’re all worried about the political shift in their own countries.

And me?

Devastated. It still feels surreal. Like I’m going to wake up.

I woke up Wednesday morning at 3 to check the news and fall back asleep to sweet dreams of having elected the first woman President.

Instead, I was up until I had to go to work, trying to find a livestream that worked, contemplating calling in sick.

I listened to Ray Charles’ version of America the Beautiful.

I cried on my walk to the train.

My friends hugged me when they saw me and I could tell they didn’t know how to act or what to say, especially to someone who’s normally the bubbly, talkative one in the morning.

I couldn’t focus on work at all.

And again, what’s to say that hasn’t been said?

I’m trying to figure it out just as much as most of my friends are.

But of all of the reasons that I believe as to why he shouldn’t have won – there is one that keeps resonating with me, that I think is inarguable.

The locker room tape. (by the way, he wasn’t in a locker room).

I don’t know how a woman, or a dad, or a mom. or a brother, or a person could have voted for him after that video came out.

Period.

And I don’t even know if that’s the worst of what he’s said or done. But it was one of the worst for me.

So I don’t know what to do from here.

But I feel so lucky to be living in another country right now–one that welcomes refugees. In a city that’s so international.

My best friends whom I hang out with daily are so diverse: gay, from the Middle East, and European.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.