Wednesday, November 5, 2008

This one's for me

Last night was a historic evening. Moments of beauty, hope and joy few and far between. As such, I want to record last night's events so that I as a reminder that days like this do exist. 

I was in camp all day at work, but we got out early. I turned on news coverage immediately. I combed the news channels for the latest returns. The husband came home and watched the coverage with me (in between naps anyway). Since it was Tuesday (of course) I went to the gym and watched CNN on the elliptical, while the husband watched from home. 

I came home and was glued to the coverage until 9PM. The husband is not that big into politics, so at 9 we compromised and switched back and forth between Indecision 08 (Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central) and CNN. At 10PM CST, Jon Stewart said, "I would just like to say, if I may... that at 11 o'clock at night, Eastern Standard Time, the president of the United States is Barack Obama."

My immediate response? "Don't fuck with me Jon Stewart!"
I quickly switched to CNN and kept clicking refresh on my computer for confirmation from a legitimate news source that the news was true. I was all at once overjoyed and scared that it wouldn't be true. 

The husbands response? He woke up from his nap and said, "That's good."

A few minutes after it was announced and the phone rang. There was no doubt in my mind as to who it would be. It was Sis-C. We both squealed on the phone. 

The husband and I stayed up to hear both John McCain's concession speech and Barack Obama's victory speech. I may have shed a few tears. I have been buoyed up by a sense of optimism and well-being ever since.