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Missing the Election

2008 November 4
tags: ,
by yankeebean

avt_emiliabethj_large2One thing that has occurred to me in the past year or so (this is my 4th year in the UK), is that I get homesick when I’m missing things in the USA.  I don’t mean ‘missing’, like thinking-about-things.  I mean ‘missing’ as in, I-wasn’t-there-to-see-it-happen.  It starts with the family tradition of going out for breakfast every Sunday… then birthdays that you wish you could help celebrate, and the 4th of July, and even Election Day.

History is going to be made today in America, the country I have no choice but to love.  We will (hopefully) have the first black president of the United States.  OR the first female nut-job, I mean Vice President in the US.  This is a BIG DEAL… and I feel like I’m missing it.

Here’s a question for all my fellow American ladies in Yorkshire.  Is it embracing more British things that makes us feel more like a fit in the UK?  Like Marmite and dry sarcasm?  Or is it missing-out on more American things that makes us feel like semi-outsiders in the US?  Like Election Day and fireworks on the 4th of July?

I’m going to start watching the coverage of the Election at 11:15 on the BBC.  And I’m going to watch as long as I can, until I pass out from exhaustion.  And I’m going to watch history being made from thousands of miles away.

And although I won’t be surrounded by Americans, shouting American things, I am going to feel VERY American watching my country’s history being written right before my eyes.

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  • peacefulyorkshire

    Yes Yankeebean, I can relate to your post. Here it is Election day and I am waiting for the result. Who will win? Will America make me proud? I plan on camping out in front of the BBC til I collapse from tiredness too!
    I am homesick —!!

  • pacificyorkshirebird

    I was going to go to bed and get up early enough to watch it all in the morning before work. I think now I might stay up and watch as much of it as I can too… I’ll be there with you two in spirit! Perhaps we won’t miss out so much???

    Sometimes I think that my loved ones back home miss out on the wonderful experience that is seeing America from a different perspective. It has changed my perceptions enormously.

    Fundamentally though, I notice more the things that make me semi-outsider in the US. I don’t think I would have said that in my first six months here. Now, I hear about bands or tv shows that are huge in America and I have never heard of. Things like that make me feel removed. Holidays too – especially the ones that aren’t observed in anyway in the UK. I try to fully participate in the British things that I wouldn’t get over there. Last year, we went to a big bonfire on Bonfire night even though it was freezing. Things like that remind me of the trade off I made when I left the US. I miss small events in peoples’ lives and huge ones like this election. But then again, I get to enjoy the best cream teas ever made, see the Lake District, and hear fascinating stories about The War. I also feel a little bit proud of the fact that I get to be the first to discover British bands that my friends will love in six months, and to live anywhere near a topshop and H&M makes many of them jealous.

    Ok, so I really just trivialized this election by comparing it to topshop. Perhaps there are other things about Britain to celebrate. Will be thinking…

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