the election - part 1 - the good part

ok, mom and dad, i waited a day for this, but as you may have guessed we're all pretty happy out here about the obama victory. i know you feel differently than me about this, but i hope that over the coming months and years that you begin to see that this was a good thing.

election night was incredible. i came home from work early, champagne in hand. this year i was sure. our nanny share partners came over to watch the results with us. they were both really nervous. mike was so nervous that he forgot to add the lime to our margaritas (um, yuck). they all had this fear that the country might go the other way, again. not me, i knew.

the states rolled in slowly. we ate pizza, had drinks and the girls played. then at 7 we sat down to watch stewart & colbert. ha ha, kind of lame, when will this be over? then around 8 pm we started hearing people cheering in the streets, moments later, jon stewart made the announcement. there was cheering and hugging and tears. it was amazing.

hope won.

open the champagne!

i thought mccain's concession speech was good, and the speech of the man that he used to be before this dishonorable campaign that he ran. had that man run, he probably still would have lost, but he'd still have some self-respect and dignity. i feel a little sorry for him that he pissed it all away for nothing.

we kept evie up late to listen to obama's speech. tony & kimberly came up to watch with us. by the time the of the speech evie was getting a little squirrely, but i wanted to be able to tell her that she saw it. i just kept hugging her and feeling much better about the world that she's part of.

hope.

i cried. happy, happy tears.

i was a little unsure of obama when this whole thing started. i worried that he didn't spend the political capital that he went to the senate with. where was the groundbreaking legislation? i love to hear him speak, but then what? then i really started listening to him. and watching him. and i read his first book. and i started to feel excited. i saw him maintain his composure as dirt was slung at him, but he never lowered himself. he stayed calm while his peers scrambled. i started to hope.

eventually my hope didn't have to do with him, but with us. would we as a country be willing to give hope a chance? would we be willing to accept a candidate who wasn't negative. truly, i didn't worry about his race, as much as i worried about whether we were really ready to change enough to let a positive message be the last thing we heard as we stepped into the voting booths.

god bless america! we did it!