I Know I'm proud...

I'm overwhelmed today. I'm the type of person to stick anything emotional good or bad way deep down inside. But I still feel anxiousness. Does that make sense? I know that I have emotions about SOMETHING and what those exact emotions are I don't always know. But I feel an anxiousness that lets me know I am feeling something. I know it may seem strange to people but that is just the way I cope. I have no idea what life would be like if I allowed myself to feel or recognize whatever I'm feeling.

So today I am having that anxiousness. I know it is surrounding the elections. I know that it keeps bringing tears and tightness in my chest. I think I am excited and proud. I'm thinking about my father a lot and how he is feeling. This morning he told me that this is the first time he's ever felt like an American. Now my father is the President and CEO of a HUGE nationwide insurance company. You'd think someone who has been able to climb his way to a position like that would be feel some sense of acceptance. But he doesn't. He said he still feels like that little boy who went to a segregated school and drank out of colored water fountains (this is what he told me at 6am this morning). And I'm feeling some kind of way about that.

Then the man behind me at the polls was a 93 year old black man. And he told me he has never missed an election. He said he voted for FDR. And to have him standing next to me as he inched forward in line refusing to take a break to sit down, even though I told him I'd save his space. Well it made me feel some kind of way too.

And being the only person of color at my job kind of leaves it hard to talk about the significance of today. Not that I CAN'T say "I’m so excited to have a Black president." But anytime I bring it up what this means to ME, they kind of get uncomfortable and breeze past it. Now all of the people I am working with today (I work out of a few offices) are voting for Barack but they still don't feel comfortable talking about it on a racial level. So I guess I just need to be able express my excitement and pride and I don't have an outlet at the moment.

So I think I am SO EXCITED. And I think I am extremely NERVOUS. But I'm pretty sure I'm very PROUD.