It's been a long time coming. But I know...

Today has felt momentous. Beyond words. I work with a lump lodged in my chest. I talk with co-workers, friends, loved ones, strangers, about race in such unearthing ways as we've never spoken before. That is what this election is doing. It is opening a portal for us all to evolve, to end racism, to see privilege for what it is, to grow together.

I connect to all I love through phone and e-mail, call Democratic voters in Florida to tell them where their polling locations are, and read everything I can online. Tomorrow we will know. All these months of excitement and work, will coalesce into tonight's results.

This snippet from Dartmouth, my alma mater, punched me in the chest. (In a good way).

The View From Your Election: Dartmouth College

A reader writes:

Those who are wondering if the youth will turn out ought to see what I saw this morning.

One well-known government professor here told me that she has never seen so many students vote in the first hour of voting as she saw this morning. And I've never seen so many students up and alert at this hour. They're normally stumbling out of bed to make it to their 10 a.m. courses. Today, the campus has been buzzing for hours this morning. It appears that many of them decided to go to the polls as groups of twos, threes, fours and more when the polls opened at 7 a.m. The number of students I saw by 8 a.m. walking around with "I voted" stickers on is astonishing.

At breakfast, I sat next to a table of four black students, all of whom had voted. The three men were wearing ties. I asked them why. The answer: It was their first election, and they wanted to mark the occasion.