Ok, ok, so it’s a little hokey but I still feel compelled to track it as part of a written legacy for my grand children and great grand children.
What has been a sense of dread and anguish over the last eight years, more acutely felt over the last four, is no longer heavy inside me. I am weightless, if only for the moment as my mind fills with the possibilities, the implication of our new President elect. The burden of years of World hate directed at the US seems lifted…
I am a realist… sometimes anyways… and so I know that this is not the ”be all to end all” . But as I sat working on my home computer, flipping at regular intervals over to a screen refreshed with the outcomes of each state, I couldn’t help but become more and more anxious. “Was this really going to happen?” I asked myself? And as state after state reported, the screen becoming more blue by the minute, I thought for sure I was having one of those strange dreams I have. And in the living room, my son sat transfixed to the screen, talking to his friend on the phone “No dude! Seriously! He just got the whole right side of the map!” Remember, he is twelve. I hope he remembers his passion for voting spawned early in his life by such a historic event. My daughter, at her mom’s house on Tuesday’s, could be found texting back and forth with Joshua.
And when the results came in showing Obama as our next president, I jumped up and down, squealed and laughed. I clapped and picked up the phone, unsure who to call first. Joshua and I opened a bottle of champagne, and settled in to listen to the concession speech of McCain. I was impressed by the aura of true love for our country that he showed in this short speech. He made a bigger impression on me as a supporter of Obama than he did throughout his entire campaign. His supporters however, not cool…. the booing was uncalled for, completely.
But with the formalities of McCain out of the way, it was time to see what Barack had to say about his being chosen as the next president. His speech was magnificent, calm, collected with no ego stroking involved. As he stood there, speaking in a voice that I had yet to grow tired of hearing, I cried… I cried with tears of unashamed relief and joy that a majority of people previously considered apathetic did NOT sit quiet and watch. I cried for all the shame I had felt in our administration over the last eight years…. for the last 5 years of fruitless killing of my neighbors and others around the world. I cried because I finally felt safe in my own home, I felt that maybe now, the world might realize that not all Americans took pride or upheld the actions of our government. I cried because I could actually feel good about being a citizen again. It was a wonderful feeling to have guilt so suddenly lifted from you.
Now… I said I was a realist and I am… We have laid a gigantic mess of historic proportions at the feet of this Man. An inhuman amount of effort will be required to detangle this situation we are all in (and I mean all. If the global financial crisis has taught us nothing, it is that we are ALL in this together, there is no “You” and “Me” anymore. ) So many things come together as an incredible force to work against us now. So many questions… Will Obama even make it to the Inauguration?? Will he make it beyond?? And if our country can come together and except him, he’ll certainly have his plate full with the issues of the day. I can’t imagine he’ll need ask for a second helping of anything during the next four years. It’s a daunting and hellish road this man has to travel now. He has a lot to live up to now, his pedestal is sky-high, and his balance must be near perfect, because if he falls, the world will be watching.
