11:01

I had imagined celebrating an Obama victory. I thought it would feel something like the Eagles winning a really important football game: I imagined myself cheering and jumping up and down. But at 11:01 when they called the race for Obama I was silent. My husband and I opened our bottle of celebration wine, and tears ran down my face as I tried to process the enormity of what has just happened, as I tried to exhale after holding my breath all these months. This is real. It can't be taken away. History has turned a corner, and we can never go back. MSNBC alternated between numbers and graphs, and video of Americans, grocking this new reality, who knew exactly how I felt.

As the great orator and president-elect Barak Obama began to speak a feeling crept up on me that I soon recognized as pride. We had done something together, we the American people, that shone for all to see. I have always loved my country, but recently I have been ashamed of her actions in the world, and as a liberal growing up in the time of Regan and Bush, have felt like my role in this tribe was as dissenter and critic. But last night the American people chose the candidate that took the high road, the candidate who spoke of hope and unity, and the candidate who crossed a barrier I was resigned to believing would not be crossed in my lifetime. And he won by a landslide. Dear readers, I think I am going to run out of Kleenex before I am done wondering over this turn of events.