Madilyn here,
I was supposed to write a post about our election night party/wake exactly a month ago. However, since the event turned into a wake as the night went on and that last month has been a collection of super depressing revelations about my country, I have not been in a good state of mind to be happy or funny or clever or kind, particularly when I am supposed to write about the source of my bad mood. However, me putting this off is preventing us from posting about cool fun things, so it's time to bite the bullet.
The night of November 8th, we invited people over because the results were not slated to be announced until 3 a.m.. We realized that neither of us would be able to sleep that night and it would be really depressing to stay up all night alone in our house. Also, a friend shared a recipie for election cake that women used to make for election day to celebrate our democracy and attract people to the polls. The article said it was a tradition that predated women's suffrage, which is interesting for a lot of reasons I'm not going to talk about here. I wanted to make the cake and since the recipe was huge I needed people to help us eat it.
It was a bit of an ordeal because I had very little of the necessary baking equiptment and I had to use yeast, but in the end I succeeded in creating a very tasty, bread-shaped cake (x3). Cody made chili, which was also excellent. We had some trouble finding disposable dishes since Europe actually takes recycling and environmental impact seriously, but when we did find it everything was recyclable, even the styrofoam (Step up your game America).
I was supposed to write a post about our election night party/wake exactly a month ago. However, since the event turned into a wake as the night went on and that last month has been a collection of super depressing revelations about my country, I have not been in a good state of mind to be happy or funny or clever or kind, particularly when I am supposed to write about the source of my bad mood. However, me putting this off is preventing us from posting about cool fun things, so it's time to bite the bullet.
The night of November 8th, we invited people over because the results were not slated to be announced until 3 a.m.. We realized that neither of us would be able to sleep that night and it would be really depressing to stay up all night alone in our house. Also, a friend shared a recipie for election cake that women used to make for election day to celebrate our democracy and attract people to the polls. The article said it was a tradition that predated women's suffrage, which is interesting for a lot of reasons I'm not going to talk about here. I wanted to make the cake and since the recipe was huge I needed people to help us eat it.
It was a bit of an ordeal because I had very little of the necessary baking equiptment and I had to use yeast, but in the end I succeeded in creating a very tasty, bread-shaped cake (x3). Cody made chili, which was also excellent. We had some trouble finding disposable dishes since Europe actually takes recycling and environmental impact seriously, but when we did find it everything was recyclable, even the styrofoam (Step up your game America).
Unfortunately I forgot to actually take a picture of everyone at the party because at the time I was distracted by the trainwreck that the election turned out to be. It did seem like everyone had fun innitially. We had an interesting mix that included several Americans from around the country, our landlords' sons, and our older neighbor (who is a vegetarian who was still friendly after I accidentally offered him chili twice even after he mentioned it. We almost made vegetarian chili, which makes it an even greater tragedy.), so we had some interesting discussions about the differences between the US and Irish government systems. (Spoiler alert: proportional representation seems great.)
However, as the night wore on without an announcement people started trickling out. By 3 a.m. Cody and I were alone in our living room, taking turns refreshing different webpages to see if any of the results had changed. By about 5 a.m. Cody's computer died, which ended our call with Andrew that was keeping me awake. By 6:30 I fell asleep because at that point I had been awake for 23.5 hours and could tell how PA was going to go.
At 8 a.m. I woke up to have breakfast with Cody before he went to class at 9. When he got back we had lunch and left the house just because we needed to move. We went to the Shandon community garden and raked leaves for three hours; I don't know if you've ever raked leaves on 0-4 hours of sleep, but I will tell you from experience that it's pretty hard and effectively prevents you from thinking about the state of your country.
However, as the night wore on without an announcement people started trickling out. By 3 a.m. Cody and I were alone in our living room, taking turns refreshing different webpages to see if any of the results had changed. By about 5 a.m. Cody's computer died, which ended our call with Andrew that was keeping me awake. By 6:30 I fell asleep because at that point I had been awake for 23.5 hours and could tell how PA was going to go.
At 8 a.m. I woke up to have breakfast with Cody before he went to class at 9. When he got back we had lunch and left the house just because we needed to move. We went to the Shandon community garden and raked leaves for three hours; I don't know if you've ever raked leaves on 0-4 hours of sleep, but I will tell you from experience that it's pretty hard and effectively prevents you from thinking about the state of your country.
I made a nuisance of myself a bit on facebook leading up to the election. I was aware of this, so I did try to limit myself to fights that were worth it. By "worth it" I mean I tried to only argue with people who I cared about, respected, or considered intelligent enough to actully try and grasp my point before disagreeing. I probably failed to change anyone's mind because for some reason "I have a right to my opinion" actually means "I can say things that are demonstrably false and harmful without consequences and you are not allowed to point out how hypocritical that is."
But real talk: America, I'm disappointed and, for the first time in my life, ashamed.
And to anyone who reads that and thinks "well if you're ashamed, just leave":
Screw You.
I am allowed to be ashamed when my country fails me and millions of others. I was raised to be proud of my upbringing, whether that means as an American, a Southerner, or a member of my family. Yet. all of those entities are fallible, and as I've grown older I've become more able to recognize precisely how and why.
What I've learned is that pride and shame are not mutually exclusive feelings. I can be proud of the good and ashamed of the bad at the same time; knowing that there are still things worth being proud of is more reason to face the things I am ashamed of so that I can change them.
Ignoring the bad things so you can more easily be proud is weakness. It is building your life on a falsehood that betrays and corrupts anything truly worth being proud of. (ex: The South trying to deny the role of racism in our history.)
America is mine too, and I hold this Truth to be self-evident: that all people are created equal and should be treated as such. And any America that cannot recognize that has no business calling itself "great."
But real talk: America, I'm disappointed and, for the first time in my life, ashamed.
And to anyone who reads that and thinks "well if you're ashamed, just leave":
Screw You.
I am allowed to be ashamed when my country fails me and millions of others. I was raised to be proud of my upbringing, whether that means as an American, a Southerner, or a member of my family. Yet. all of those entities are fallible, and as I've grown older I've become more able to recognize precisely how and why.
What I've learned is that pride and shame are not mutually exclusive feelings. I can be proud of the good and ashamed of the bad at the same time; knowing that there are still things worth being proud of is more reason to face the things I am ashamed of so that I can change them.
Ignoring the bad things so you can more easily be proud is weakness. It is building your life on a falsehood that betrays and corrupts anything truly worth being proud of. (ex: The South trying to deny the role of racism in our history.)
America is mine too, and I hold this Truth to be self-evident: that all people are created equal and should be treated as such. And any America that cannot recognize that has no business calling itself "great."