Today We Wake Up to a Different AMERICA

Something weird happened last night. It's midterm season, but people weren't cooped up in the library (or drinking their woes away). I know I live in the middle of Shattuck Avenue, amidst the life of Downtown Berkeley, but I still found it a bit odd that cars wouldn't stop honking well into midnight last night. How many people were caught in a traffic jam? Were there really that many bad drivers on the road last night?

What the hell happened?

CHANGE happened. That's what. We You did it, America! 

YES, WE CAN!

I let the victory get to me. Even though I wasn't a part of it, I let it carry me away. I am proud to be American a permanent resident of the United States. 

So...I stepped out into the streets of Berkeley last night and found...Berkeley. So this is what Berkeley looked like in the 60s. People just came together for a common cause. LOVE WAS IN THE AIR; there's no better way to put it. For once, I genuinely felt like EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY. Optimism radiated in that big crowd that started singing as a chorus, cheering Obama's name, and high-fiving drivers who themselves were fist-pumping and yelling in their cars. 

I've never seen such a vision of unity. Such happiness. Such optimism.

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY.

Change has come.

...Is everything going to be okay?

This turnout. It feels like a mandate. It feels like so many expectations lie squarely on the President at this moment. What if he doesn't deliver? What if he's not all we've made him out to be? And then what? Are we going to destroy him, much as we've destroyed many a US President? 

I HOPE Obama won't be destroyed by the presidential institution. I HOPE, in turn, that HE will destroy the institution as it stands today, that he will revolutionize the executive office (without abusing power, of course!), and consequently, that...everything will be okay.