Tears

It's been 3 days past Election Day, and I still can get teary in private about as easily as I blink. The pictures of Jesse Jackson in tears, and the interview with Colin Powell, in which he visibly choked up talking about how his whole family wept upon the news of Obama's victory, and I swear, Jim Lehrer choked up too, at least his voice was uncharacteristically crackly in a prolonged camera cutaway. Judith Warner wrote elegantly about these Tears to Remember.



I have been reading Newsweek's 7 chapter article on the the campaign. It is easy to forget how unlikely a candidate Obama was two years ago, and how human he is as well, as confident and aloof his on stage presence might be. The article talked about how Obama could not stop crying at a book party, when he was overwhelmed with guilt about his inattentiveness to his own family during his Senate race.

My tears are curious. Part of it is just being part of a truly tremendous historic moment. Part of it is because I feel that Obama represents me, even if I am not American. Part of it is because the palpable change from fear to hope in the air. But also part of it is noting yet another close of an era, and relating my own changes along it. I vividly remember staying up in 2000 in my College hallway; I vividly remember 2001, when my mother's phone call woke me up that fateful September morning; I remember my life then, who I was with then. Then the Bush years, and how my life has changed along with them. And now Obama, and how my life has again changed from the last election, and how this time when I look forward to the future with hope, and so much of that is so personal.