A Good Dream

Everyone around me has been so quiet today about the election, as if it might be a dream and if we talk about it we will wake up to find it not true.

Until last night I didn't realize how much I have been hunkered down, enduring the disappointment that continued to rain down on this country for the past eight years. I had already resigned myself to a continuation of this, thinking that there was no way Obama could be elected. I was prepared to keep my nose to the ground and not think too much about politics because I didn't want more discouragement to affect my health and happiness. As the results came in last night I felt a weight lifting off my psyche.

What a relief! The election of Barack Obama is one of the coolest things to happen in this country in a long time. Hope beat fear! That's so cool! I know there is more to it than that. One of the big factors is just how dismal the Bush administration was. Even some Republicans were disgusted.

Over the last eight years my expectations regarding the quality of U.S. leadership have been lowered to the point that I am thrilled just to have a president who can talk! I know Obama will be centrist and many of his policies and decisions will fall short of my idea of what should be done, but it WILL be an improvement over Bush and I am happy enough with that for the moment.

Maybe it is a dream. A waking dream. Martin Luther King's dream.

To all of you who voted for him, you so rock!