Finally.

I am an American and proud of it. I do not remember the last time I felt this way - definitely not in the last eight years.

This election was a very timely one for me - after taking the year off and seeing a good chunk of the country, I came to the conclusion that we had a great country, a gorgeous country ... and it is even more gorgeous now.

My faith in the United States has been restored somewhat. Americans elected Senator Barack Obama regardless of all the racism in this country; we elected someone who I will not have to cringe every time he speaks, who has respect for the other people in the world, and someone who I can actually respect.

Regardless of this - I feel a twinge of sadness that in this historic election, when we elected the first African-American to the highest position of our country, we continue to discriminate by voting in several states the definition of marriage as one man and one woman. In the future, as those laws are overturned, as our generation understands that love cannot be defined so narrowly, history will look back at this as an embarassing part of this election.

I look forward to seeing Barack do some good work - let's undo some of the damage of the last eight years.