Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Post-Election Feelings

I'm exhausted today but not from working at the election for thirteen hours helping people with the voting machines (that was last night). I'm emotionally exhausted from all these many months of the campaign while I was a nervous wreck heebie-jeebie basket case being afraid to get my hopes up and to believe the polls no matter what happened. I'd steeled myself from experiencing the disappointment I have felt after the last two presidential elections but knew I'd be devastated if it happened again.

My son expressed how I also feel when he wrote in his blog, "I feel like I'm coming out of a long, abusive relationship and someone is finally treating me nice and I don't know how to react."

After so much tension and stress, it will take a while to relax. I sincerely hope we can have some unity in this country for a change. We need to grow up as a country, and perhaps this is a beginning. Now we need to have civil rights for everyone and quit treating gay people like second-class citizens. We must quit sucking when we're compared with other industrialized countries, as in high infant-mortality rate, no affordable national healthcare, education, and other areas in which we need to improve.

I stayed away from all people today and feel better able to face the rest of my week. I'm thrilled about this historic election and will be able to actually feel it tomorrow after a good night's sleep.

5 comments:

Jimbo said...

Yesterday was so emotionally draining, even though the outcome was good. I was a man of few words at work. It's like a weight has been lifted and I think we're all getting used to not carrying that emotional burden any longer.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on the win! We will have to wait to see what the future brings and if any of the promises will bear fruit. But, Obama will be the next President. I totally agree with your comments about what needs to be improved, I really do! In my view, the priority for the US is to stop giving money to tinpot, corrupt regimes and use the money to get a free national healthcare program going, along the lines of what the UK introduced in 1949, which by now is unfortunately curtailed by too much bureaucracy and government interference.
Enjoy your sleep!

wurdsmith said...

In my case, there has been a simmering rage roiling inside me now for 14 years -- since the rise of Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay and a whole host of wingmen taking us to hell in an agonizingly slow downward spiral. The rage was fueled by so many things: the whole impeachment farce of Bill Clinton, the redistricting of Texas at gunpoint by DeLay, the grandstanding by mental midgets masquerading as "Republican strategists." It boiled over with the campaign of 2000 and the outright lies leading up to the war in Iraq. It nearly exploded when Congress refused to look into the vote rigging in Ohio in 2004 and stayed on high through the ineffectuality of Congress after 2004.
And now, there is a growing sense of hope to replace some of that rage. Step after step, as Barack Obama moved closer to actually winning the election, my rage abated and the hope grew.
Last night, as I watched men of great moral courage cry tears of joy at the election, my heart released the rage.
But the intensity of my desire to see real change remains. We need to fix our electoral system so that voting is once again a right and not an ordeal. We need to fix the way that elections are run -- replace these arcane state-by-state primaries with regional primaries that allow candidates to truly have a chance, even without big-money backing or an well-oiled Internet machine.
We need health care for everyone. We need to allow workers to bargain collectively and we need to reign in corporations and stop granting them more rights than the individuals who work for them.
And I need to get down from my soapbox.
Today I hope.
That, to me, is a great start forward.

Anonymous said...

Amen! My feelings exactly! I am somewhat more rested today; I think I was in awe and unable to rest after the win.

Unknown said...

Wurdsmith: a lot of emotional, romanticism here. I agree we have to wait and see.The system is what it is and the chess game of words to influence people must always be held suspect. It's a wonderful gain over our history of prejudices of all kinds but we have to realize how that integration has evolved to date. the media has created a new America in language alone. There has been a blending of two cultures, black and white. I mean to get a job as a national news media announcer, one must be de-regionalized in dialect etc. How much have black still had to compromise to fit in as equals in a white world? In the arts, esp music, Black have distinguised themselves as trend setters. but in politics, there's a great deal of business as usual.We demand the right suit and the ight colored powerr tie, the family style must reflect a certain standard which is frankly White in nature. Blacks to attain positions in the white world have really had to beat us at our own game,, more than play the game true to their own heritage and mythology. I'd like to see the day when both cultures contribute to "the tan race" as it were.A true blending of cultures. I truly thingn the media has been a major influence in forcing a tv family on all of us.
I know this is a risk...and doesn't really reveal what i mean...hope my intentions are understood.