Feeling Groovy

For the first time in my life, I volunteered for a political campaign this year. I liked Obama so much, I felt it was totally necessary to do what I could to make sure he landed in the White House. I revamped the filing system at the local Obama HQ, made phone calls to voters and helped the comfort squad feed the volunteers (my official title: "Food Lieutenant"). It was a great time and I came away feeling like I needed to do more, but then again chronic restlessness is my natural state.

A few days after Obama's big win and many other big victories (California's Prop 8 notwithstanding) I am soaking in the warm pool of accomplishment. I am feeling hopeful for the first time in almost a decade while at the same time, wondering (much like everyone else it seems) what is next. Obama's administration is being handed one dud of an economy, a very thin, holey fabric of foreign relations and many other situations in which he will have to prove himself worthy, some of which are based on old school ideas about people of certain skin colors.

On Tuesday night, I watched the returns while gnawing at my fingernails. I was a nervous wreck. I knew Obama would win, but I didn't know what kind of shenanigans might keep him from becoming president-elect. As a girl who had had her liberal heart broken more than once I was way past cautiously optimistic and somewhere around pessimistically keeping the faith. Over the last eight years, I have felt like the ideals that would move us forward as a country such as compassion, progressive inclusiveness and personal liberty, freedom and the pursuit of happiness were ideas to be hidden away. I couldn't make it in the corporate cutthroat, "Us" versus "Them", more for the most and less for the rest, suffer quietly and you won't be seen as unpatriotic world that was so quickly created by the current administration, I was drowning. Suffocating. I truly feel that we, as a country, as a people and as a planet's population can only truly move forward and survive if we work together. Now, I feel like lots of other people agree with me. It's quite a lovely feeling.

I didn't cry with joy like I thought I would when they called the presidency for Obama. I didn't cry when I'd heard that John McCain called to concede. I didn't cry during Obama's victory speech, even when it seemed that everybody else in the world was crying. Yesterday, I finally popped and burst into tears and you know what did it? The thing that sent me over the edge? I was watching a clip of Comedy Central's "Indecision 2008" and I started to cry as I watched Stephen Colbert struggle to keep his conservative character in tact while the real Stephen fought back tears when the election was called for Obama. For whatever reason, that did it for me and not only did I start to cry, I wasn't able to stop for a good long while. I'm still getting misty this morning when I realize that I can feel hopeful again. Oh hopeful heart, you may now come out of hiding.

The whole world has been moved by this and I can't wait to see what happens next.