An election hangover: How I felt the morning after

It’s the day after the election, and I haven’t stopped exhaling. While you’re reading this, I assure you that I am still exhaling. I’ll admit it; I was wound up tight and losing sleep. I read every poll, compared them to the past, to the analysis, to the blogs and to the posts. I know it’s all a grueling system designed to make us nuts, but the truth is, we were all standing at a crossroads of tightropes. Which ever way the collective chose would lead us to such dramatically different outcomes. Unlike a tightrope, there’d be no way back. And as a woman, a gay, an Arab-American, and a human being, if the path had been not what it is, my future (and I guarantee your future, no matter your make-up) would, to some extent, be defined by others’ policies.

Thank the universe – we’ll be going forward.

I understand that politics are a dirty game, and I haven’t really read the rules on the box. What’s the saying? There’s no such thing as an honest politician. Well, I think that we’ve inched pretty damn close. But that’s not what this column is about. This is about believing and belonging – at least sensing the possibilities.

As it turns out, at this point in time, the scales have tipped ever so in our favor, fellow queers and fellow pro-love diplomats. You know, still to this day (well, maybe to yesterday), I’ve never felt as though I belonged more than just a little. That’s OK, though. I’ve tried to play those cards in my favor, but nonetheless, I’ve always been displaced to some extent.

In school K-12, I would sit and assess my peers during pep rallies and ballgames. That fervor and pride in school, city, state… I had zero concept and zero point of reference. In high school, I became the girl sitting in the very top of the bleachers, laying down with headphones on. That school never really accepted me, so the feeling was likewise.

When I went to the University of Kentucky, I definitely started to get it more: feeling love for the school, its traditions, my place in it and my classmates. Not to mention the awesome college drinking days. What can I say – spirit and spirits are made for each other. But that reality wasn’t really mine; it was a borrowed hoodie in the rain.

On a national level, I understood more what it meant to have that deep pride watching every member of my immediate family get naturalized as American citizens. But I – being the only born-in-the-USA member – didn’t get to experience that with them. So again, I felt like an outsider.

Proud of being Lebanese? Well, that came much later in life, as well.

In the U.S., people always ask me, “Where are you from?” And when I visit Beirut, they’re all, “Oh, you must be American.” They can tell from a mile away.  Where do I belong? Where am I accepted?

For once, I can say that I kind of, sort of actually feel like I am not clinging to the fringe. That maybe, just maybe, more people would be cool with me than wouldn’t. I can barely wrap my mind around it.  What I give forth, I might actually get back.

I believe in hard work, contributing on every level possible, but deep down inside, it’s always felt like a one-way road – like I’m doing the bully’s homework just so I won’t get beat up. Disenfranchised is the word. But today – today is a new day.

I’m not rocking some rose-colored glasses, either. There is still so much conflict ahead, just as there’s always been conflict behind. But one day at a time doesn’t sound so bad right now. I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but today, I’m happy. I feel really good.