As I write this column I'm still recovering from jet lag.
Not because I've been to any far flung destination, as foreign travel remains off the table for a while yet.
No, I'm currently on US time after a marathon election watching special, in what was the most gripping of presidential races.
It was difficult to drag myself away from John King and the CNN magic wall, and so like millions of others I stayed glued to the 'key state alerts' and slowly changing numbers.
King, CNN’s chief national correspondent since 2005, was the outright winner in what was a crowded field of excellent journalists and broadcasters, now household names on this side of the Atlantic.
I'm fairly sure that the people of Delaware wouldn't have much interest in a Fermanagh/South Tyrone recount, nor do I imagine too many people in Connecticut stayed 'awake for Bailey' during the hotly contested 2017 South Belfast assembly election.
But as a global superpower, American politics has always had far reaching consequences.
In a divided country this election prompted more Americans to cast their votes than at any time in the last 100 years.
It is easy to look from the outside in at the crass and vulgar man who was leading the US and think that a horse wrapped in stars and stripes would make a better president, but the 70-plus million people who voted Donald Trump didn't agree.
President-elect Joe Biden now needs to find a way to heal the division, to undo the very real divide between black and white and rich and poor, to repair the damage caused by four years of Trump leadership.
The economy and not the coronavirus were the top consideration for voters in the States, worrying about job security in a country where health care is reliant on medical insurance is understandable, and something the Biden administration will need to be cognisant of moving forward.
That so many people bought into Trump's abrasive style of leadership is directly linked to him being seen as a strong on the economy, this is despite his own, now well documented, financial problems.
That voters went to the polls, many viewing each other as enemies rather than uniting to make a better life for all, is a genuine tragedy and I feel for those Americans trying to raise their children safely in such a toxic atmosphere.
Meanwhile, as I write this Trump is still refusing to concede the election. He remains in full defiance mode, tweeting about electoral fraud without producing any evidence. Dangerously whipping up his supporters against his political opponents and their fellow Americans.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has made history as the first woman to hold the post, she brings diversity to the role, badly needed at this time in such a divided society.
Like the last drunk in the kitchen of a party, hugging a warm can of beer and refusing to leave, Trump is going to eke out every last second of his time in the White House.
But when he runs of out of road and court cases, go he must, and when he does what will this change of leadership mean for global relations and specifically to us living on this island?
Joe Biden is a proud Irish American, a man who has suffered tragedy in his life and who appears to have a strong empathy with the suffering of his fellow country men and women as a result.
The Sunday Times reported a Democratic source as saying “Boris Johnson is not an ally".
“They think Britain is an ally. But there will be no special relationship with Boris Johnson.”
This could all cause a massive headache for the Tory government with just weeks left to negotiate a trade deal with the EU, and with the controversial Internal Markets Bill, while rejected by the Lords, far from dead in the water.
Attempts to resurrect the bill with a few adjustments are ongoing, but tinkering with the legislation will not impress the new American administration, who have made it clear that there will be no trade deal if Brexit damages the Good Friday Agreement.
A lucrative financial deal with the US is what the Brexiteers have been banking on to offset the damage caused by leaving the single market.
It was a deal much easier to negotiate with a Trump administration, who were willing to bend international law when it suited.
One not so clear cut with the Biden camp, who bring a very different style of leadership to the table.
Is it any wonder, given what's potentially at stake, that so many people were glued to election results in a country an ocean away?
