Upwelling or WTF?

The second of a short (?) series of reflections on the EU Referendum.

On Thursday 23rd June after I’d cast my vote for the remain option I was on a Facetime call with a friend.  I was saying how I felt more inclined to vote in referenda than in elections because it seems like a simpler, more direct expression of the sum of the country’s feelings, opinions, decisions.  That referenda feel more democratic, our combined votes being a clearer barometer of ‘the will of the people.’  I felt philosophic, the people would speak and we’d get to live with the outcome.  All during the call I would catch glimpses of my face in the thumbnail on the screen.  My muscles looked flaccid and slack, the mask of frozen trauma.  Curious, interesting, unexpected but undeniably there.

I found myself staying up to watch the results begin to roll in.  An interesting pattern mostly the early returns were from voting areas with smaller numbers being counted more quickly.  Then that total (often for ‘leave’) would be overturned by a big number of votes for the opposite camp, mainly from cities.  Worn out by the swings I fell asleep around 3am when the numbers favoured ‘remain.’  Beneath my philosophic stance it seemed I cared more than I knew about the result.

On the Friday I woke just before 6am, just in time to see the numbers reach a conclusive decision for ‘leave.’  Disbelief, shock, grief.  A great upwelling of emotion in me. 

A few weeks ago I had jotted down this quote from a Scandinavian writer, I forget which one.
“I decided there and then that the important stories are the ones about breaking free.  That writing for me was shining my torch into dark corners.  Many stories are about burying and hiding.  Mine would be about digging them up and exposing.”

For the last couple of days I’ve been exploring what about all this has touched me so deeply.  A condensed version of that may spill out here over the coming days.