cleolinda | Nov. 5th, 2008

Well. I'll talk politics now, for once, because maybe people will be a little less inclined to argue, now that the election is over. Anyway. I was watching the Daily Show coverage, and all of a sudden, Jon Stewart said something about Obama winning, and I seriously did not believe him. I mean, number one, it's the Daily Show, and number two, this announcement led into a skit, but I truly honestly believed that we would be hashing out the election results for weeks. I was even prepared for what happened in 2000 to happen again. A clear, decisive victory was the last thing I had expected. I flipped over to CNN, and I wish I could remember the exact phrasing for posterity's sake, but the text at the bottom of the screen actually had "Barack Obama" and "president" in the same sentence, and I stared at it for the longest time. It was real, and it was happening, and it was happening now.

And then I was reading y'all's reactions, and I found myself unable to feel any of the same joy or excitement or jubilation. I think I was shocked, mostly. My eyes were a little wet. And the thing is, I don't think I had realized until that moment how much I had lost over the last eight years, until the moment that I got it back, and that loss was suddenly what I was aware of. I realized right then that I had lost faith in pretty much anything this country stands for. ( Read more... )

It's not over. One election doesn't solve anything--no matter who you elect, that candidate still has to live up to his promise. No matter what change you want, you have to get out there and make it yourself. But for the first time in a very long time, it felt like the country had opened its eyes again and remembered its name.