post-election meanderings

it's 6am paris time. and my facebook status tells me that "laura judd is exhausted and in tears and so, so, so happy." and barack obama just made his acceptance speech, and he just told his daughters that they can get a new puppy for the white house, and he talked about that lady in atlanta, and oprah cried and jesse jackson cried and i cried. and i didn't know until this moment how sure i was that this would never happen. i was sure, absolutely sure, that the people who live in america would never elect someone like him, with brown skin and the middle name hussein and words about real, tangible equality. i always thought we liked our white men and our money too much to ever manage it. and i always, always hoped that it would happen, and i wanted it to happen, but mostly, i just dreaded the election party we had tonight in our apartment building. i just wanted to know, and i just wanted to hear that he'd lost, that the old white guy had won, as always, so that i could have enough time to get angry, put myself back together, and write off america for life. i've been trying all day to come up with a plan b, because i've always said that if we couldn't elect barack obama to be president, i didn't want to live there anymore. i didnt want to go home. not because i'm petty or bitter or anything, but if the country i was born in could hear the things that that man said and see him speak, and say "no, we don't want that", then it simply wouldn't have been my place. it wouldn't have been anywhere i belonged. and that was what i expected tonight, to know that i was going home in 2 months, and to find out now that i really, really didn't belong there anymore.

but... that didn't happen. and, after being up almost all night, after coming downstairs after my hour's nap and watching everything that happened on cnn between 5 and 7 am paris time (9 hours ahead of california time), i'm at a loss for words. i can't believe it happened. and i was so afraid it wouldn't happen, that i never thought about what it would mean to me if it did. i was totally unprepared for the emotional chords this struck with me. i kept saying i'd cry if he lost, i didn't even think about how much i'd cry if he won. and i was so happy, and so shocked, and so proud. i don't know if i've ever been proud of us this way before. i don't think i've even called america "us" in a very long time. and watching him walk offstage with his family was like watching a movie- it couldn't have been real because patriotic music was playing, and i liked it. and i cried for most of that speech, not even because of what he was saying, but because i couldn't believe we did it. and you can say what you will, maybe he won't be any different, maybe politics will water him down, maybe all those things. but right now, i'm just shocked that america elected someone who even looked like that.

and i need to get some sleep; im about to fail human rights class tomorrow because i have next to nothing done for this project i have due at 1pm. so i need to go to sleep so i can get up in 3 hours and do it, and i dont know really what im trying to say, but i hope that, whatever it is, i've said it. it's strange that i'll always remember being in paris when it happened, in a room full of french people smiling toasting and congratulating, and americans sitting quietly on the floor and staring at the screen with tears trickling down our faces.

and it's strange, and so surreal, and i hope i wake up tomorrow and it's still true. if it isn't, i'm skipping class.


maybe i'll skip class anyway.