For the past two weeks, I’ve operated under the assumption that Vice President Kamala Harris would win the 2024 presidential election. It was this blind assumption that alleviated much of my anxiety leading up to yesterday.

Unlike some of my columnists — who were only in fifth or sixth grade when Donald Trump was first elected — I was a high school freshman. I was old enough to grasp the gravity of it all, to pay attention to the headlines and White House press briefings, but too young to cast my own vote. Instead, I spent the next four years glued to every twist and turn in the news cycle, trying to understand the ripple effects.

Like my mother, I’m incredibly strong-willed. Despite being raised in Indiana, her family’s roots on the East Coast have infiltrated every fiber of her being. She’s as stoic as they come. For every five times I’ve seen my dad cry, she might have shed half a tear. My mother is not one to get caught up in the storm of politics or hurricane of emotion.

But I’ll never forget the morning of Nov. 9, 2016. I was at the kitchen sink, staring at a blank TV screen that had been lit up the night before with results I couldn’t comprehend, when she walked in — her eyes just beginning to well up.

Trust me when I say: I know my mother’s strength like only a child can. Her DNA runs in me as mine runs in her. In that moment, I knew, innately, that they were tears of frustration, confusion, and fear.

She could already see what a Trump presidency would mean. She knew it would strip me of rights she had at my age. She knew our LGBTQ+ family members would live in fear as hate crimes and dangerous rhetoric surged. And she knew our country would be torn apart by debates over what makes a leader qualified and how America should present itself to the world.

What she couldn’t foresee was a global pandemic or an attack on the U.S. Capitol. She couldn’t imagine a world where ordinary people like us would drive around with “Joe and the Hoe Need to Go” bumper stickers proudly displayed.

I imagine I feel a lot like my mom did that day in 2016 — sitting at my laptop, the suggestion of thick, heavy tears threatening to fall on keys that feel so useless and overused at this moment.

I woke up this morning with all kinds of ideas about what I planned to say. My alarm went off at 6 a.m., despite the fact I’d been awake at 10 p.m., midnight, 3 a.m., and many moments in between. I stood in the shower far longer than I’d care to admit, speaking useless proposals into the stream of what was supposed to be a cleansing of body and thought.

Nothing I’ve drafted has come close to adequately spanning my thoughts and those of 66,885,279 other Americans.

In what kind of country does the president use a slur like “Kung Flu” to describe a deadly pandemic? And what does it say about us as a people when that rhetoric seeps into our national psyche, resulting in an explosion of anti-Asian hate crimes?

What kind of nation tolerates the idea that murdering others over baseless election fraud claims is acceptable? How utterly foolish must the Jan. 6 rioters feel now, knowing most of the actual interference came in support of Trump? Then again, it’s naive of me to think they’ve changed their minds. I’m sure many of them still cling to the belief that the election was stolen.

How did we not see it coming? That electing someone who openly bragged about sexual assault would corrode the very fabric of our society, giving rise to even more brazen acts of misogyny?

I’m not here to declare, “I know what is right and wrong. Here’s every flaw and fragment in Trump’s policy proposals and lack of inhibition.”

Though that is my instinct, I’m not privy to Trump’s meetings. The best I can do is take him at his word. When he says he’ll implement a 20 percent tariff on all imports, I trust him. When he promises the largest deportation of immigrants in American history, I trust him.

My hope is that I’ve also built enough trust with the communities that surround me. There’s very little I can do right now beyond what I’ve always done.

I will continue to hold the door for folks who don’t look like me, regardless of whether they say “thank you” or keep the gesture going. I will continue to listen to concerns that sound different from my own with an open mind and intentional ear.  I will be gracious when it feels hard. I will be kind when others are cruel.

And I will continue to tell myself, like Benjamin Mee in “We Bought a Zoo,” that “sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage. Just literally, 20 seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”

When Donald Trump is inaugurated on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, no matter how cruelly coincidental it feels, I will go forward bravely with grace for myself and other Americans. I have always believed, and continue to believe, despite what Trump says, that traditional media is a pillar of democracy.

This courage, while at times embarrassing and hard to conjure, will continue to guide my values as a journalist and a human being.

I am not employed by Trump, Harris, Biden or any politician. I do not owe any of them an endorsement, stamp of approval, or any other conglomeration of support. I approach every candidate with the same level of skepticism as the last. I am not at fault for reporting on a man’s lack of morality.

I do, however, have a duty to rebuild public trust in the news media and be transparent about how my implicit biases and experiences affect my reporting. As journalists, that’s the least we can do going into the next four years.