A new start?

In the end, it was a decisive rejection of wanting to remain in the European Union, no matter how wonky the ideas of many of the people voting for Leave.  I hope to be proved wrong, that the economy surges ahead, that the politics unleashes a positive reaction at home and throughout the EU but I doubt it.  Even the prospect of Scotland voting for independence doesn't fill me with sadness because if Brexit is to be a success then it won't be based on nation-states that many Brexiteers cherish - it will be a lot more decentralised, even beyond the city municipal level. 
Boris 'the Animal' Johnson said the EU was a noble idea whose time had come and gone.  I don't think that.  I believe the nation-state, a nineteenth century construct, was a noble idea whose time has come and gone and therefore the UK breaking apart isn't such a big deal in a post-Brexit world (though if we had remained in the EU, I would have wanted Scotland to stay part of the UK). I think the EU represents one version of a post-modern political entity.  Britain will have go the other way in post-modernism, although not to the extent of slashing wages and protections for British workers (the UK already had the second lowest regulatory burden in the developed world) in some crazy free market free-for-all.
But putting aside economics and politics, the loss I feel, the wound, is intangible.  Geographically we are still part of Europe but psychologically we have rejected to be European, to be part of something more than us and to be greater for that.  I am an internationalist and my support for peoples of different places working together to resolve their differences will not diminish.  But to call myself European seems hollow when I know my country is choosing a different path.