The relief from election terrors

 I've divided the election-related responses into two posts because there needs to be a 'before' and an 'after'. This is the after. I've talked about how I was becoming increasingly incapacitated due to the stress of the election. In here I'll talk about how things started falling in place.

The election night was a wild wild roller coaster ride. I'd been following the 538 blog and other prediction places a few days early and they sort of predicted the way the election would go...a 'red mirage' of sorts. On the election day as the results began coming in, it was encouraging, and the next day too. But then the dbag started winning and the alarm bells rang. The three of us, and I were watching the tv and we began freaking out. They had traumatic memories from 2016.

Then the results began resembling what had been predicted. A red mirage, after which the blue...voting would become apparent. I couldn't handle the stress anymore, but also I wanted to sleep, so I bet all of the people the three of them that Biden was gonna win, 25 bucks each. They happily agreed. With a different group of people I tried to increase the wager to 75, there were no takers. My thinking was, if Biden lost the couple of hundreds I'd be losing would be of no concern to me, if he won I'd also get some nice moolah.

The results trickled over the following few days, and it became clear by Thursday the fartballoon had no way to get the numbers. We were still worried. We went on long walks, and those walks were oh so long, to distract ourselves, watched horror movies and kept our brains occupied by anything but the news because that's how you make yourself gloomy.

Eventually by yesterday, Saturday, it got certain that Biden would win, and it got declared in the evening. But by Friday nights there were already memes being sent, and congratulations being handed out. We found out the declaration while looking for a movie to watch. My family and friends viber groups totally lit up, family called in to express relief. Thank gods. Lets thank all the fuckiin' gods.

There's still some fear, about senate, about the political direction the country is going in, the policies and so many other things, but they can wait. The existential threat we had hanging over our heads, the unpredictable, childish piece of random number generator that could destroy the world at a whim had been managed successfully. Life was long, other problems would be fixed as they came in. For now though, celebrations!

We haven't celebrated fully yet. Maybe a pizza party. I'm thinking of drinking some beer. Or another vacation sometime soon. To totally chillax. They're all bonus, the real gift we already have, and now I'll be able to sleep soundly without the awful night terrors.