Aftermath

Last week was the busiest week of the month for me, and I had two elections distracting me. Fortunately, the New Zealand election was at the end of the week and, in any case, had much less of my attention than maybe it should have.

It was only on Thursday, and especially Friday, that I began to feel relief from the strain of the US election, something I didn’t even realise was there until it was gone. I can see now that I was deeply affected by the campaign for weeks, maybe months. Part of it for me was the gnawing fear that the Republicans would manage to steal another election, despite what all the polls were showing.

When the election was over, I felt a wave emotion common to many Obama supporters, something often attributed to the historic nature of the election. I’m sure that’s part of it, but I think for many of us the emotion was carried by a wave of profound relief that this time the people’s will won the day. It was a kind of liberation, in many ways.

I didn’t have anywhere near the same emotional investment in the New Zealand election, but that was apparently true of a lot of Kiwis. This was nothing like 1999, 2002 or 2005. And, New Zealand didn’t have anything negative like the forces of hate that cast a pall on what was in so many ways a great election for the US.

Added up, the events of this week have put me far behind on many things that I now have to complete, and I’m afraid this blog will have to wait a little while longer until I attend to those things. That, and sleep—I’m exhausted. But once I get past all that, I’ll have plenty to say on all these subjects.