The Morning After

The news when we went to bed at 2 am was that our candidate had won six states. I slept a fitful night and awoke at 6 am a little fuzzy-headed and tired still but too anxious to sleep. I walked into the kitchen and Beloved looked up from his computer and shook his head. It was a landslide, he said. Upon further review he was the first President in American history to have had fewer electoral votes in his re-election campaign than in his first election win. And the map for his 'clear win'

United States maps and how each county in the nation voted (Red is Republican, Blue is for Democrat.  Yay for the electoral college!)

was frustrating for us to witness. I went through an entire range of emotions today-frustration, sadness, fear, posted and subsequently deleted a few nasty links and posts on my Facebook page--Yep. Ran the whole gamut. The most fun was the post I wrote about inviting all of my friends commiserating to join me on my homestead when the zombie apocalypse commences.

The saddest thing of all is how divisive this nation has become. We find it no mean feat to call each other names and insult one another. For that is the biggest loss for me. The loss of mutual respect and dignity. The demonization from both those on the Left and the Right.

I was intrigued by a blogpost I'd read online by a guy. Handsome guy, wickedly funny and well-known. He was an author and editor of a few magazines. I read the Comments section from a Website he'd been known to post on and was appalled at the abject racism and completely hateful rhetoric spewing from those who follow him religiously. I am no wilting flower and I don't offend easily. But that was the straw for me. I clicked 'Unlike' on his Facebook page and quickly hoped none of my friends, liberal or non- had noticed that  I'd 'Liked' his page. So no, Republicans of mine, thou art not perfect either.

But as I hear of Chris Matthews saying tonight: "Thank God for Hurricane Sandy"...one has to wonder where does it all end. We have a lot of work ahead of us.

From Facebook:

Loving these wise words: " ... if we are happy this morning, let’s not be obnoxious about it. And if we are anxious or angry this morning, let’s not keep hollering and name calling and threatening to move to Greece. Let’s all acknowledge that we’ve got some accountability in the brokenness of things, and that we’ve also got some power to move the heck on and start piecing it back together." 

Go make your garden as fair as you can,
You will never work alone;
Perhaps he whose plot is next to thee 
Will see it and mend his own.