The last few weeks have been hard on me. I relied on magical thinking to survive them. I convinced myself that if I didn't get in any huge fights with anyone (especially family members), and if I watched every single episode of The Daily Show and The Rachel Maddow Show, and caught a few episodes now and then of smart liberal commentary via Now with Alex Wagner or Up with Chris Hayes, and checked Nate Silver's 538 blog at least once every single day, everything would be OK.
And everything WAS OK, so either my magical thinking worked or all that fuss and bother wasn't necessary for anything but my own ability to cope.
Now that it's over, I would like to thank Nate Silver for helping me survive. Like so many progressives, I relied on his blog. It kept me relatively calm and reassured. Nate, I wish I could endow a math department in your name at my alma mater and give you a foot rub.
Not that I was too sanguine yesterday. I tried to find ways to stay away from my computer: it made me crazy that I couldn't start checking results first thing in the morning. So I went to work. I ran errands. I went on an eight-mile hike. I washed all my dishes. I took a really long bath. I made hot chocolate, and then I sat down to start dealing with the results. I was hopeful, but I was also prepared for bad news. At least, I told myself I was.
I'm just not one to count my chickens before they hatch. I'm not even one to count my chickens AFTER they hatch. In my book, it's still to early to count them when they are cute little fluffy yellow things. I wait until they have molted all their down and grown feathers and started laying eggs. THEN I count them.
I don't know if it's basic skepticism or wise caution or a somewhat malign distrust of good news, but I just can't believe any good outcomes until they're really confirmed. I just can't. I can only hope. It's sort of a hard way to approach the world, but it's the nature nature gave me.
