The Same, and Different

Now that George W Bush is (almost) history, I've spent the past few weeks in a daze. It's so hard for me to believe that I actually backed a winner, and that we, the American people, voted for the most qualified man, regardless of skin color--a man who had actually earned the right to compete at a national level, instead of someone who (a la Bush) arrived there as a scion of privilege and family connections.

Thinking about change, and what this country is capable of, is both humbling and exciting. Though sleep deprived, I was on a dreamy high for the rest of the week.

And then I came back to reality. My mother, who is 80 years old, is overwhelmed, watching over her very sick husband back in Cleveland. At times, I make myself ill worrying over her--how she doesn't take care of herself, tries to do too much, and doesn't listen to my heartfelt advice/pleas for her to slow down.

At times I feel powerless, unable to prevent the traffic accident, the inevitable collapse of my mother's body if she continues to go beyond her limits. Ironically, by fixating on my fears--of having to go back to Cleveland to 'pick up the pieces' of being saddled with her care, and of seeing her in a weakened condition--I do the same thing myself--not eating or sleeping well.

Recently I've been having difficulty sleeping for other reasons--noisy neighbors, and stress at work. I like to think of my 3 room apartment as a safe haven, but sometimes it isn't--the outside world intervenes and again, life doesn't go according to my plans.

This lesson, letting go and trusting that things will come together, seems to be the hardest--a life-long challenge. I seem to confront this lesson over and over. (I must be a slow learner). Meanwhile, I'm still trying to hold on, to not freak out when I get into a disagreement with a neighbor, or a co-worker, to not immediately fall into my fear-based 'fight or flight' response, as I did yesterday.

I am a slow-learner, but I'm also trying to accept life's ups and downs--and the fact that ultimately, life will not go according to my plans.

Obama-nation

On the morning of election day, my stomach is rumbling. Not because I am hungry to eat, but because I--and just about everyone I know--is desperately hungry for change. After 8 endless years under the worst president and vice-president--(Spiro Agnew included--of my lifetime, I'm craving new leadership. I believe that Obama and Biden can provide what we/I need. Hell, he can hardly do worse.

Obama, like Bill Clinton, represents achievement based on merit, on ability, on intelligence. George W Bush represented, to me, the worst of America--nepotism, family connections, affirmative action for rich white men. Who honestly believe that GW would have come within sniffing distance of the White House, if he'd been born into an average American family, much less a poor one?

More than anything, I want to believe that my native state of Ohio will finally side with someone who could potentially benefit this country. Growing up there in the 1960's, I heard that Ohio was the "Mother of Presidents," basically tied with Virginia as the birthplace or residence of our supreme leaders. But later, I came to think of the Buckeye State as the "Mother of Bad Presidents," since we had birthed many corrupt and inept presidents--i.e. Harding and Grant,along with various mediocrities like Taft. Then there was William Henry Harrison, who was from (but not born in) Ohio, and who lasted all of one month before he caught pneumonia, and two who fell under assassins' bullets--James Garfield and William McKinley.

Lately, Ohio has helped to seal our nation's fate by sending GW Bush to Washington in both 2000 and 2004. In '04, the state vote was sealed by the machinations of Kenneth Blackwell, who was both Ohio Secretary of State and Bush's campaign co-chair. (A major conflict of interest).

Today, I want to hope that Ohio, and the nation as a whole, can finally begin to put the Bush years behind us and elect a leader who calls upon our better nature, rather than our xenophobia, our fear of the other, our narrow-mindedness. Will it happen?
I'm hoping that we'll know by midnight tonight, and that I'll wake up tomorrow in a new era of possibility, in which George W Bush is almost irrelevant, a footnote of history whom many of us are anxious to forget--like a nightmare that fades in the light of morning.