Yes We Did

There is so much joy in the air today.

I’d like to share two pieces with you: Sarah Jaffe’s report from Obama’s headquarters in Northeast Philly, and Renee Martin’s take on this historic win as a black woman and the mother of children who are set to grow up in a world that’s just a little more hopeful than it used to be.

As morning set in here in Amman, a fellow writer called to ask me for comment on this whole thing, and I don’t think I made much sense at all. I was crying. It wasn’t even embarrassing at that point, I had no strength for even entertaining feelings of embarrassment. I was overcome.

This is the first time in my life that the political process has made me feel this way. I’m still young, so I hope it’s not the last.

Yesterday, both expats and locals of American citizenry came up to me here in Amman and, overhearing my American accent, asked if I had voted for Obama. Early on election day, at the gym, I saw people literally cheering from their treadmills when Al Jazeera English flashed to photos of Barack Obama.

It turned me into a completely different person. A sap.

It turns out that I really like being a sap. Running on just a few hours of sleep, with a migraine to beat all migraines, and yet this is one of the brightest days I have seen in a long time.