What Do You Do With a Broken Heart?

Sifting through the aftermath and finding a path forward.

Around 11:23pm on November 5, I deleted every single one of the social media apps from my phone. I turned off all news alerts. I went on Do Not Disturb. It was all I could think to do. Suddenly, everything was so loud, all crashing in at once,  and I needed out.

The next morning, after tossing and turning 6.5 of the 7 hours I lay in bed, I woke up hoping and praying that what I knew to be true somehow wasn’t. That it had all been undone while the world was dark. I crawled through the bare essentials of my  “be a person” morning routine and crept downstairs to my husband and son sitting in the playroom. I looked at my husband, who looked lovingly back at me and just shook his head. 

And that, dear reader, is when my heart shattered into a million irreparable pieces.

“How? How did we get here? How did we get here AGAIN?” is the chorus that has been thrashing around in my mind since that morning. 

I had a much different piece written two weeks ago. Even one week ago. It was angry; full of questions, rage, and spite. And a lot of that still sits with me. Even so, I need to find a different way forward.

But I’m going to allow myself to let my angry out for this next bit.

I think what makes this moment feel so impossible is my utter inability to understand. Him being chosen again as the leader of our country feels like my brain is trying to jam a square peg in a round hole. It doesn’t compute. It cannot be. And this surely is not meant as an (impossible) attempt to persuade anyone to think differently, but I am struggling so deeply to understand. I have so many questions that used to be rhetorical, but now, facing a second term, I think I genuinely want the answers. 

I don’t understand a vote for him. I especially don’t understand those who sit faithfully in church on Sundays yet also cast a ballot for that man, a very large base of his voters. I grew up knowing the right thing was to treat others the way I want to be treated, to be a helper, to leave the communities I touch better than when I found them. Are we not reading from the same Bible? Are we just deciding to “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” when it’s convenient and comfortable for us? Does “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me” only apply when it’s someone who looks like us? Do we ignore the part that says “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” and just laugh at the harmful rhetoric coming out of Madison Square Garden a few months ago, the likes of which have been spewing from his mouth for the last decade of his political career?

I understand a vote for him if none of those values matter to you. But I cannot fathom calling yourself a (insert your religion of choice) person while also aligning yourself with him, while deciding that none of those things are deal breakers for you. The dissonance is too great.

I came across this piece a few weeks ago and it’s just hits the mark for me.

But while I feel all of these things, I also know that there has to be something I’m missing. People I love so dearly, who I know to be good people, voted very differently than me. And while I’m mad and sad and confused, I have to believe there’s something I’m not getting. And I’d desperately like to understand.

(Okay, rage rant over.) 

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Truthfully, I’m not sure how to show up right now. I’m struggling even to show up for my family some days. Scrolling Instagram and pretending like Amazon finds matter feels impossible. My heart is broken—for myself, my family, and my community. And I’m so deeply afraid of what the next four years might bring. 

I’ve gone two weeks off the sauce (aka social), and it’s brought a very unexpected sense of relief. I’ve never spent that long away from “the internet”—it’s an integral part of my job, and it’s also typically a place where I find a lot of joy. But I didn’t realize quite how LOUD it was until I silenced it. And while I’m not going to let the next four years take the joy of it from me, I do want to be conscious of what I consume and how much. 

Regardless of where you find yourself on the political spectrum, chances are very, very good that at least some (if not most) of the news media you’re consuming is heavily biased. Both sides are guilty of it, and if you think otherwise, you need to take a closer look. One thing I found while I was on my death-scrolling hiatus was Tangle News. It came up on one of my favorite podcasts, This American Life, and I subscribed immediately. Isaac Saul and a team of independent journalists publish a daily bipartisan newsletter covering the day’s biggest political topics with no spin, no angle, and context from both the left and the right. It has, in a weird way, been a balm to my sad soul over the last few weeks. If you’re also starving for better news sources right now, do yourself a favor and subscribe. You can subscribe for free and, of course, there’s a paid version that offers you a few more articles per week and other perks. Both David and I subscribed to the paid version within a week of reading — it’s been that helpful. 

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The world feels heavy right now. As I sat in therapy the other day word-vomiting my big feelings, I admitted that it all feels dark and scary and doomy. But as the fog has started to lift, I know that I need to find a path forward.  And I found myself realizing that while YES those big feelings are valid and it’s okay to just be scared right now, I also don’t need to lump all the scary together into one big giant heap of scary shit. I tend to do that. You might, too. 

Let’s dismantle the giant heap of scary shit and just do the next right thing. The one, literal, next right move. Right now, that might be deleting social media for two weeks. It might be putting your Christmas tree up before it’s socially acceptable. It might be reading a trashy book or crocheting Christmas garland or crying until you have rashes under your eyes (Aquaphor helps with that, btw).

But eventually, it will be writing a cathartic Substack post and getting yourself back on the internet so your friends can send you funny things again. And then, it will be dropping off a hot meal to someone who needs it, or going to a Moms Demand Action meeting, or sitting in on a local school board meeting. And then it will be using your ballot to speak your voice in the 2026 midterms. And then it will be signing petitions and having kind conversations with your neighbors and knocking on doors. And then, before you know it, it will be voting your values in the 2028 presidential election. 

So, unlike the title of this piece might have led you to believe, I don’t know what you do with a broken heart. I’m not sure how to do this. But I’m going to start by just doing it — choosing the next right thing, even if I have to do it sad, scared, and confused. Because while it feels like so much is out of my control right now, I can turn my focus to what’s inside the four walls of my home. I can ensure that my son grows up knowing how to treat others the way he wants to be treated, to be a helper, to leave his communities better than when he found them. He will be good and kind. He will be a voter someday. And it’s up to me to make sure he’s ready to make a difference.