1. OBAMA WON!!! I wasn't worried at all until about a week ago, when I started seeing reports that the election was going to be neck and neck. Because it didn't even cross my mind that Romney might actually stand a chance at winning. And yes, when we took that Liberal/Conservative placement test in AP Gov I ranked as pretty freaking liberal as you can go (you and me, Brian Bradley, what's up!), so I don't understand the appeal of Romney in any way, shape or form...but I thought the rest of the country was at least on the corner of my page. It was interesting how many Americans I talked to last night/this morning felt the same way. Just dumbfounded that Romney might be able to win the election, unable to fathom what we would do if Romney won.
Oh, fun fact. Whoever was typing the subtitles during the election coverage was TERRIBLE. Mitt Romney was on multiple occasions Mister Ronnie. Obama was once Prama. There were a lot of lovely moments about fat and magic.
But Obama won. And I was able to get three very peaceful hours of sleep.
I was following an amazing page on facebook called "90 Days, 90 Reasons." I did not read as many as I should have or would have liked. But Nick Flynn wrote reason 95, and that one really stuck with me. He said, "Obama is wise and flawed and compromised and trying, like everyone else I know. For all that hasn’t happened these past four years, I no longer wake up each morning feeling like I’m caught in a bad, unending play. I no longer feel that every single one of the things that make up what I think of as meaningful (children, health, air, tolerance, etc.) is being trivialized, marginalized, and crushed under the wheels of a fleet of black limos. I feel like I now wake up in the real world, the world we all live in. It can be better, of course, but it is real.
I will vote for Obama—that was decided thirty years ago. There was never a chance I’d vote for an empty deathhead like Romney. I know it’s hard, I know we aren’t exactly living the revolutionary change we might have (naively) expected, but it’s time to do what we can to prevent four or eight or a hundred years of these smarmy thugs parading around our brains. That play is over, it sucked every single night of its run, and now we are walking home. While we were huddling in the dark, the world got torn apart, and lots of neighborhoods now are either dying from neglect or dead from money. I simply try to avoid the ones that are dead from money, but the ones dying from neglect deserve another shot. Let’s go home. Everything will be all right. Let’s go home."
I mentioned to a friend last night, I hadn't realized how unconcerned I had been the last four years. I didn't worry much about the fate of our country. And maybe I should have, maybe this is coming from a very politically naive 20-year-old (and I'll be the first to admit how little I know when it comes to politics), but I felt secure with Obama. Looking back, I was always a little nervous under Bush. Even when I was eight and all I knew was my mom voted Democrat and my dad was stubborn. When I was twelve and furious at all the hateful bumper stickers that suddenly adorned every car. When I was sixteen and opened the Democratic side of the APUSH/APGOV debate the day of the election, not knowing the weight that would be lifted from my shoulders that night. Not even knowing I had that weight until yesterday.
And so today I am happy. I am happy that our country decided to keep hoping. In his re-election speech, Obama said, "And tonight, despite all the hardship we've been through, despite all the frustrations of Washington, I've never been more hopeful about our future. I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I'm not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight.
I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting."
It was beautiful to sit in a room packed full of people from all over the world, who cared so much about the fate of America. To see all the people willing to stay up until 4:30am because they knew they wouldn't be able to sleep without knowing. To experience the excitement as Obama passed Romney and inched closer and closer to 270. To experience the complete and absolute joy that filled the room when Obama won Ohio and the election.
So I am happy. No matter what else happens today, I am so, so happy.
(Warning: from here on, the things that make me happy are much more simple and frivolous.)
2. I woke up at 8:30am, after barely 3 hours of sleep. But already the sun was up and the sky was blue and I was humming Beatles' songs through class. And it has stayed such a beautiful November day since.
3. I got my VegBox today!! And, in honor of Obama's re-election, I decided to make a feast. An egg scramble, including: red pepper, broccoli, mushrooms, potato, onion, and BACON. Also a freshly baked baguette, it was still warm when I bought it. And some white wine, because I am CELEBRATING.
4. I submitted my first essay!
5. In just over a half hour I will be watching Skyfall.
6. Maintenance finally fixed my window, so now it is closed! They told me I could open it again if I wanted, but there's no way I'm risking it.
7. Obama won. He won.
8. White wine makes me very happy.
9. After my I finish my presentation for Early English Drama tomorrow, all I have to worry about for the next couple weeks is finishing a first draft of my play for Creative Writing.
10. Four days until London, EIGHT DAYS UNTIL EDINBURGH AND KIMBERLEE BUSH!
11. I've only had three hours of sleep, remember? So being deliriously happy is kind-of unavoidable at this point. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment