Big Day, Tiny Heart

Hey y'all. I have no idea why I decided to go the Southern route there - it's just in my blood and bones and sometimes when I'm tired it comes out. So there ya go.
It's been a hell of a day.
I was about to head off to bed, but figured I would be disappointed with myself if I didn't in some way document this day.
We have a new president. But we have so much more than that - we have a whole new outlook. As a lot of you know, I was a fish headed upstream in that I didn't hate George Bush. Pitied, perhaps, in days of late, but I still see a good man there. In the last few months and years I've lost sight, the way I think a lot of America did, in how he got to the top position in the world in the first place, but he got there, nonetheless, same as the 42 men before him. But that's not really what today was about.
You don't hear me say it often, but... every once in awhile I slip, and every once in awhile I fall in love, head over heels, with New York City.
Today, I love New York. I got to experience this day in a way that no one, outside of our capital, got to. I got to stand in a crowded bar in Manhattan, surrounded by strangers, and watch the world change. For the better, no less. I got to feel the common thread that is the tying bind of a city like this. It's a loving city. Oh, I know, you're skeptical. But it is. It's an embracing, inviting, encouraging city. It welcomes change, and uncertainty, and enthusiasm.
So many moments in history have been captured by the iconic image of Americans crowded around a television screen. In bars and restaurants, in homes, around electronics stores on the streets. And so often, we're watching images, crying collectively, because something has happened. It's rarely something good. JFK. Elvis. Reagan. The Challenger. And, it's hard to even type, September 11th, 2001. None of those were good tears. Those are images that people froze to, clung to one another through, and survived to tell the next generation where they were at that moment.
I will tell my kids about watching the Challenger explode in my fourth grade classroom.
And I will tell my kids about the day I truly became a New Yorker. I didn't watch that day on television.
But today... today was different.
It almost looked the same. Crowds huddled in the freezing cold around sets and computers and even PDAs. (That might be a little different than years past...) There were tears. People clung to each other.
And they cheered.
Oh, wow, how they cheered and cried and let their faces fill with hope.
We chattered about an amazing performance, an amazing speech, an amazing moment in fashion. (Way to go, Wu.)
We watched a man do something unprecedented, who didn't forget to say, before the world, before he said anything else, "How gorgeous is my wife?" Done. Won. Love always wins.
It was nothing short of amazing. It was another monumental moment in New York City. And I fell in love, all over again.
It's been a tough week for love. It's been a tough few days of reminding myself that love can win. I had my own plans for dancing to Etta, my own version of "At Last," and I had to let it go. Reluctantly. Unwillingly. Ungracefully and humiliatingly and pridelessly. So, clearly, I don't feel much like a winner in love this week. I feel like a broken hearted, very lonely, very sad girl. I lost this week. Losing is awful, when the stakes are this high. A lot of tears in the past couple of days, and not happy "yes we can" tears. But what can you do.
So today was a good reminder that the world is bigger than I am. There are more important things than my little heart. My little tiny broken heart.
Like a president who just told the band to kick it.
More important stuff, indeed.