Finally I am allowing myself some hope, some happiness. The New Yorker cover this past week said it all with such simplicity: The red tunnel is dark and at the very end is a tiny opening of blue.
I didn't allow myself to be lulled into thinking that exit polls or surveys meant anything, since I believe that racism is alive and well in this country. I haven't had the stomach to call all of my sisters from their redneck parts of Illinois (Chicago is scary to them), but I did break down and call one of them just before the election. She had already pre-voted for McCain/Palin. I asked her about Palin's suitability and got a "She reminds me of me!" I mentioned the money she took for working away from the office and was told "I didn't hear anything about that." We didn't get into Africa being "a country" or the fact that she couldn't name a single paper she regularly read.
How she could vote against her own best financial interests amazes me.
I asked her about the last eight years. She somehow doesn't hold W. or the Republican Party responsible for any of it. How can she be related to me and seem so completely out of touch? And the other two sisters are even more conservative politically.
But I'm with the winning team for a change. My son reminded me that when Clinton got elected for the first time, I was driving and had to pull off the road to cry because I told him it was the first time in his life that he had a good president (He was born in 1980...). I had forgotten that moment, but I'm sure it's true because I've been teary-eyed this whole week.
A lot rest on Obama's shoulders, but if anyone can muddle through this mess, I think he can. It almost makes one want to believe in God, but then again, I look at these nutty evangelical sisters of mine and realize my folly in entertaining such a notion.
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