Can This Please Be Over Soon' Election Stress Is Real.

I spent the weekend in a post-conventions stupor, nursing a political hangover caused by the endless hours Ive spent glued to the screen listening to speeches and the constant Trump-this/Clinton-that commentary on social media. It left me exhausted. That or this flu-bug I have had for more than a week finally just toppled me.As far as conventions-as-entertainment go, both of these were Academy Award-worthy in my book. Memorable lines were spoken at both, plenty of points for emotional connections to be made. Id have adjusted some of the musical choices made, but Im sure they were all selected by people with bigger brains than mine, if not the Rolling Stones permission. To dwell on that point for just a moment: What exactly was the message anyway that Trump was trying to convey with You Cant Always Get What You Want'Was that directed at our NATO alliesor a veiled threat to the American voting public that hes coming our way, like it or not' If thats the case,Khizr Kahn, a Muslim whose son gave his life for America,was spot on when he offered to school The Donald with his pocket-size copy of the Constitution.Heck, after watching day-after-day of pretty much gavel-to-gavel coverage (I did mute the sound whenever a CNN pundit began to blather), I needed some downtime. My intense convention-immersion even caused me to have flashbacks to the one-and-only national political convention I covered as a reporter. It was the 1980 Democratic Convention in New York City where President Jimmy Carter accepted his partys nomination for a second term. I remember walking into Madison Square Garden and being jarred by all the colors. Up to that point, I had been watching the convention at home on a small black and white TV. My mind never allowed for the possibility of what it would look in color, much the same as my mind now doesnt allow me to think of what a Trump presidency would look like. Count me among those who just cant see it. Would there really be a wall, paid for by Mexico' Would there seriously be a ban on Muslims' Would my queer friends, my powerful women friends, my friends of color really be treated like pariahs because their mere existence threatens the president who would prefer to return to a time that we werent all around him' And of course the granddaddy problem of them all: Would we really elect a man who indeed loses his shit over a tweet and then put nuclear weapons within his reach'Its almost too much to fathom, so I just took a break from the surreality of todays election and spent this weekend in a politics-free cocoon. My head is throbbing. My chest still hurts when I breath. I cant sleep and my temperature goes up as night falls. But maybe its just the flu. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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