So. Another election has come and gone.

If you’re anything like me, you followed the election coverage on Tuesday night. Besides getting exasperated that certain states were taking forever to get their numbers in (I’m looking at you, Florida), you may have strong feelings about the outcome, whether your emotions ranged from running up and down Green street in victory to drinking your sorrows away.

A couple of days after the election, I saw a post on Facebook for the Tumblr site “White People Mourning Romney.” Being the Tumblr junkie that I am, I clicked on it and found that I had hit the comedic jackpot.

The title is pretty self-explanatory — there are white people, and they are upset — but it doesn’t do the site justice for the hilarity of the magnitude of the mourning. Pictures of die-hard Republicans stress eating, crying and holding each other in sorrow fill the pages. And that doesn’t even hold a candle to some of the sad texts and Facebook statuses on the site, my favorite being the petition for Louisiana to “withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government.”

It’s all very dramatic.

However, I came home later that day to my roommate frantically looking for pictures and videos online. When I asked her what she was doing, she told me that she was looking for pictures of Democrats mourning when their candidate didn’t make president.

“Because,” she said, “everyone is commenting on how over-the-top Republicans are being now, but I don’t think that’s a Republican thing. I just think that’s the feeling of losing.”

My first thought was to tell her to lighten up and look at pictures of angry Twitter feeds with me. Laughing at people losing their minds over something like this is funny. But after a second, I realized I was being as melodramatic as some of the people on the Tumblr. My friend was absolutely right.

Would Obama-voters have been as upset if Romney had been the winner? Would they have called their moms, sighing about how the conservatives had “won,” lamenting over the good old days when Obama was in office?

Yes. And the fact that one “side” has to feel that they lost out so badly is a problem. It’s hindering our ability to work together. We’re divided at a time when we need to rebuild together; we’re clutching our Kleenex or doing a victory dance when we should be talking compromise.

I’m not naive. There are some issues that we will be split on. But it shouldn’t matter because there are some things that we can aim to fix as a whole. We as a country are in deep debt right now, and it is affecting us college students. Though the means may be different from party to party, we, as college students, all want the same end — affordable tuition. So let’s talk to our trustees and local government officials about ways to defray costs. Let’s write to our senators and ask them to spend our money responsibly. Let’s question where our fees are going and secure that we have a more positive future … and let’s do that as an undivided unit.

The outcome of an election is always going to put one party in the forefront, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that one side should feel superior to another. There are problems, like the economy, that will be problems to us all, regardless of who’s in office.

Republicans and conservatives, the world is not coming to an end, America is not dying, and there is no need to secede from the United States. And to Democrats and liberals, enjoy your victory. but don’t gloat. We’re not coming into four years of unicorns, rainbows and intense surpluses.

In the next four years, who knows what may happen? We may see some improvements in our economy and feel alright with Obama’s successor taking office. We may see a calmer, more moderate conservative run for office and have a couple of terms with a Republican president. But either way, we need to make peace with our outcome.

There are some things we can’t change. But one thing we can do is work together, left and right, to try and make us all happy to be in this country.

Tolu is a senior in Media. She can be reached at [email protected].