Quote:In August, I went on six dates in one week. I had decided that I was ready to look for a partner. Enough of this dating unavailable men a half-decade younger than me. They’d never seriously consider a relationship with me, my two children and our needy dog. No. I wanted to find an equal. A man who wouldn’t feel the need to step in and rescue me. I didn’t need rescuing.

...two weeks later, the election happened. Once it was clear that Donald Trump would be president instead of Hillary Clinton, I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to gather my children in bed with me and cling to them like we would if thunder and lightning were raging outside, with winds high enough that they power might go out. The world felt that precarious to me.

My oldest came out of her room the next morning to show me the money the Tooth Fairy had left her. She’d unexpectedly had to have a tooth pulled, and so bravely went through it that I said, “Just think: You’ll always remember the day you got a tooth pulled with the day we elected our first female president.”

When I told her Trump had won, she protested: “But Mom. You said Hillary was going to win.”

I’ve lost the desire to attempt the courtship phase. The future is uncertain. I am not the optimistic person I was on the morning of Nov. 8, wearing a T-shirt with “Nasty Woman” written inside a red heart. It makes me want to cry thinking of that. Of seeing my oldest in the shirt I bought her in Washington, D.C., that says “Future President.”