I saw a picture of a sign at another march that read, “So bad, even introverts are here.” I wish I’d thought of that.

My mom was the lady who would strike up a conversation in line at the grocery store. She would also yell and cause a ruckus if there weren’t enough checkout lines open. She was the type to ask to speak to someone’s supervisor if she wasn’t getting the appropriate help or service. She used to talk about going to protests against the Vietnam War when she was in high school.

I am not like that. I take no for an answer. In my life, I have never asked to speak to someone’s supervisor. I don’t typically have conversations with strangers, and I dread when a stranger strikes one up with me. I’m not good at eye contact, even with people I know. Being around people takes a lot out of me, and I require hours – even days – of alone time to reset afterward. I don’t like large social gatherings. I avoid crowds. I do whatever I can to avoid talking to people on the phone. I am very much an introvert.

I’ve worked in social services and public health all of my adult life. I volunteer. I donate to charities I believe in. When I’ve been particularly moved to do so, I’ve written letters to my representatives. The only rally I’ve ever attended was a very small one put together by the union at work several years ago when contract negotiations stalled.

But that’s not enough anymore. (Maybe it wasn’t enough before, either.)

The day after the election, I kept bursting into spontaneous tears. This is not normal for me. (The only other time something like that happened was in the days and weeks after my mom died seven years ago.) I cried for friends and strangers who would be personally impacted by the policy changes the Trump administration wants to enact. I cried for the planet we are already ruining and will likely damage even more over the next four years. I cried because so many people were raising their voices in hate and anger, thinking they have a free pass to do so now. I cried because I read a lot of dystopian fiction, and the real world sounds more and more like the prologues to those books.

Then two women my mom’s age from opposite ends of the country sent me invitations to the Women’s March on Washington. I was surprised to find that I didn’t immediately dismiss the idea. I waited to see if the march was really going to happen and once it was clear that it was, I booked a seat on a bus and talked a friend into joining me. None of this was normal for me. Being in the middle of a crowd has made me feel queasy and light-headed on more than one occasion, but I didn’t hesitate to sign myself up to participate in a march where they expected 100,000-200,000 people. Why? Because none of this is normal.

So that’s what I wrote on my sign. The other side, “the emperor is not wearing any clothes.” I vote. I pay taxes. I have always been a rule follower. Now it feels like my duty to be the little kid at the end of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” reminding everyone that it doesn’t matter what he says, he’s really just standing there naked.

People told me to be prepared for massive security, men in riot gear, snipers on rooftops. I prepared for worst case scenarios, wrote emergency contacts on my arm in permanent marker. I folded myself into a tiny bus seat on Friday night and caught whatever sleep I could along the way. Ours was one of the first buses to arrive at RFK Stadium, just as the sun was coming up.

On our way to the metro, we passed security, vendors, volunteers, and metro staff who were working on a Saturday earlier than I get up for work during the week. Everyone was pleasant and helpful. One metro worker reminded us that we were marching for her as we passed through the turnstile.

Many of us had been on overnight buses, getting little sleep. People hadn’t had breakfast or coffee. Still, they remembered to say thank you to all the people working as we passed.

We gathered in a sculpture garden outside one of the Smithsonian museums in an effort to keep everyone from Maine together. There was a little boy with a sign he’d made himself that read, “Somebody needs a hug” and had a drawing of Buddy the Elf. I lost count of how many men were wearing blaze orange, but it was a larger group than I’d expected.

By the time we reached the rally point, the closest we could get was four blocks away. There was an icy wind, but only a few drops of rain here and there. To be honest, my rally experience ended up being pretty boring. I was too far from the screen at the top of the block to see or hear anything. I stood in a giant crowd for four hours, marveling at the fact that I wasn’t freaking out. Maybe I only feel anxious in indoor crowds, or maybe there was something different about this one. People weren’t shoving or being rude or difficult. The only hostility I encountered at all was in the line for the port-a-potties (people are mean when they have to go to the bathroom).

Almost an hour after the rally was supposed to end, it wasn’t looking like we were going to get to march after all. A crowd nearby broke off and started its own march down the mall to the Washington monument. Seven of us from my bus joined in. We were loud but peaceful. Just being able to move again felt exhilarating. It was incredible to witness the sea of people from all walks of life holding signs calling for equality and justice with the monument in the background. I heard a group of men chanting “her body, her choice” as a call and response to a group of young women shouting “my body, my choice.”

I personally saw people who had traveled from Oregon, California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. I stood in line for a port-a-potty behind a petite girl wearing a hijab and didn’t even notice until now that I’d unconsciously stood in a way to shield her from the rowdy part of the line. I saw more men than I expected, including a lot of dads with their young sons. There were babies in backpacks and kids of all ages.

I never did see the scary security people warned me about. There were cops on horseback by the mall who smiled and posed for pictures. At the end of the day, a harried DC police officer who was trying to rope off Independence Ave for crowd control still took the time to give us directions around the roadblock so we could get back to our bus. I saw military personnel in uniform doing the same.

We found a metro station across the street from Trump’s hotel. It was packed full of people. Marchers booed as they passed the hotel, and then we noticed they were leaving their protest signs. It looked like a memorial vigil, layers and layers of signs. We added ours and then set off for the three-mile walk back to the bus. We passed a girl with a sign strapped to her back: “Make America kind again.”

We met a bunch of DC locals on our trek back to the stadium – a man standing in his yard who said, “Good to see y’all,” a woman walking her dogs who thanked us for coming and said we were welcome in DC anytime, a man who chanted “way better than yesterday” when he saw us, and a man who said, “You did good. You did good.” Another man came out to the street holding a pitcher of water and paper cups, offering his bathroom to anyone who needed it.

We passed a yard full of Trump supporters in “Make America Great Again” caps singing “God Bless the U.S.A.” They were loud and off key and admitted to being quite drunk. I wanted to tell them I’d sung that song in chorus in sixth grade, that I want America to be great, too. For me, this country’s greatness comes from its diversity, from providing everyone with an opportunity to be their best selves, but I learned a long time ago that it’s best not to start conversations with people who are drunk.

We switched bus drivers late in the night on our journey to DC. I thought I remembered our first driver telling us to “make history today” when he exited the bus, but I didn’t write it down and I was half-asleep, so I may have imagined it. In any case, it sounds from early reports like we did make history. I can only hope that we’ll keep making history and fighting for what’s right.

Tara Thomas lives in Brunswick.