2008: January to November 4th

I know it’s way too early to be thinking about New Year’s so I’m not going to look to 2009 yet.  I will, however, take a relatively brief look back on the emotions of the year.  That’s what I have to do in order to move past it. Forgiveness is not a personal tenet of my faith.  Forgetfulness only applies to innocuous things like class assignments. I never forget a slight and when the time comes, I will always return it.  So, backwards for a minute.

January 2008: Hillary…Bill’s wife! When did she run for things? She doesn’t look like a monster. Kind of pretty actually. And smart. Where has she been hiding that brain? I must have been looking at Bill or something because I would not have missed that brain if I’d been paying attention.

February: Hillary…way more qualified than the rest of them.  Barack Obama…that’s an interesting name.  What hole did he crawl out of and can he go back?  Shut up, John Edwards with your stupid haircut. What is wrong with CNN? You have been my number one source of new coverage. What are you doing, man? Hillary didn’t say that! Or that. Leave Bill alone. What the hell?! (Stood in the rain for 2 hours to see the Big Dawg. Then had to wait standing for 2 hours more. Never regretted it.)

March:  Go, Texas, Rhode Island, and Ohio. So goes Ohio, so goes the nation! …Right?

For everyone here in Ohio and across America who’s ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, and for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up, this one is for you.

April: Why won’t that stupid bitch quit?  Because she isn’t stupid. Oh my god, what the hell? What parallel reality is this? He is not the nominee.  Am I sleepwalking?  Democrats, say something! Bill and Hillary Clinton are not racists. Who keeps bringing up Monica? And, no, random Obot at a college campus, Chelsea doesn’t have to answer your questions. Oh, and Pennsylvania, you make my life. *high-five* That is a what a landslide looks like! Tell ‘em, Ed.

May: I have my eye on you, Gary, Indiana.  I always will. You, too, North Carolina. Kentucky & West Virginia, let me buy you some drinks. How do you feel about Presidentes?  Let’s party down with Puerto Rico. See? They get it! Guam nearly did too.

Why won’t that stupid bitch quit? Because that stupid bitch keeps winning. The media can be bought but voters are not that stupid. Least of all this one. Democrats, you can still come back with your souls intact. Don’t. Do. This. Put aside the Messiah and pick a president.

May 31: Forget I said anything. Burn for all I care. Thanks for ruining graduation day, assholes.

June 3rd: What does Hillary want? To speak the truth for herself, Associated Press. You have no standing and your reputation is in the sewer right along with the Democratic Party. That was a master stroke of Journalistic Integrity. I’m proud of that bullshit. I’m even more proud of South Dakota, which was supposed to go another way if you recall. You made the news that day, but Hillary had the victory. Never had she been more Presidential or more beautiful than she was as she stood at that podium in that brilliant cobalt blue. I saw what I wanted. I wanted Denver and I wanted the Capitol and I wanted her right hand on the Bible and the stars in her eyes. I got that smile and Terry McAuliffe with one last, “The next President of the United States: Hillary Rodham Clinton.”  And for the first time through this whole thing, I completely understood the compulsion towards Hope.

Then I woke up.

June 7th:  She mourns in black. Bill claps with bleary eyes and that proud smile he can’t suppress when he looks at her.  Chelsea will not cry where they can see her.  She gets that from her mama.  Dorothy wishes she could make it better–mamas always do. I just wish I could be there. Woulda, shoulda, coulda.  She blinks fast, points towards the heavens and talks about cracks in an immortal ceiling. We look up with her and that damned hope springs renewed in our hearts.

A cracked smile and “we must elect Barack Obama” said sixteen times so hard it nearly breaks her. It does break me and I cry for two hours before I force myself to think about something stupider and less crucial than what’s just been lost. I will not remember the sympathetic pain in her eyes as she reaches for her supporters or the slight way she leans into Chelsea when she steps on stage to embrace her mother. Chelsea was the mother then, the mother of the grown girl with her glass heart–all 18 million splinters of it. I can’t remember that or I will never move on.

You’re likeable enough, Hillary.

I will never move on.

June 26th: …Unity really is just a town in New Hampshire.  She won that one, asshole. God, don’t let this be the end. God, don’t let this be the nominee.

August 22-25th: We deserve so much better than this.  We deserve her. We had Bill! Are we confused? Do we not know quality anymore? Keep going? Okay.  Just wish I knew where to.

No, I do know.  This is a travesty. I can’t even breathe I’m so angry. Okay, maybe that’s the crying.

It can’t happen again. It won’t. I will not reward this with my vote. He needs to go back to Chicago. I’ll buy the plane ticket. Time to get to work. *rolls up sleeves* John, what can I do for you?

August 31st: Well, now it’s gonna be fun.  Sarah, you have a unique opporunity to do what  no other women has. Break that highest, hardest glass ceiling for us.  We tried so hard this year.  You ain’t them that brung me, but I’d still love to dance–all the way to Washington.

September-October: Shocked silence.  Smug (guilty) silence from women’s groups everywhere. I can only ask what the hell is wrong with you so many times before I get sick of the sound of my own keyboard. What. the Fuck. Is Wrong. With You? This is a woman. This is a modern, working mother. Her very life is progressive regardless of whether her politics are. She’s one of us. Come on. This is our chance to stand together and show that we will not stand for misogyny in pursuit of the highest seat of government in this country. This is our chance to make Cady, Susan, Lucretia and the gang proud of us. Gloria, Nora, Ellen? Anybody?  Doesn’t anyone care that our daughter are watching and learning who they can be from what they see us accept? Anybody?

November 4th: Guess not.

I’m sorry, John.  You worked so hard. You paid your dues and I wanted this for you as much as I wanted it for this country. You’re such a good man.

Sarah, please don’t be sad. This wasn’t you. This was every woman who nodded her head when you were called “Bible Spice” or donned her “Sarah Palin is a C**t” shirt with pride when she attended a gay pride parade.  She thought she was being cutsie and all the boys thought it was so hot how she trashed you. Something about that metaphorical catfight made him want to call her back in the morning.  Please don’t think too much about those LGBT who trashed you either, despite the fact that you did more for the than Barack has ever done for anyone. (I’ll never understand, and you’re probably in similar straits, how a woman can stand tall for another minority group but be the first to hang the rope for her own.)

Fatefully, I suppose, it seems that we don’t care about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people either. All those people in matching t-shirts, bumping fists and yelling epithets, didn’t share a fundamental belief.  They didn’t believe in the rights of gay men and women to marry. (Some did, but they didn’t vote downticket, so too bad for the ‘mos.) Not a huge surprise but there ya go. They came for the Messiah and left the Hebrews to drown in the Red Sea. These are the people that came out to vote. Who knew? and here I thought the Conservatives stayed home.

See, Sarah, it wasn’t you. In my not at all humble opinion, a whole lot of,  misguided, feckless jackoffs got together and decided to throw you and Johnny Mac to the dogs. Many good, patriotic people worked their hearts out for another outcome. We didn’t fail. You didn’t surrender. You fought until you knew there was no victory in the night. Then, you stood under harsh lights and you waved like a queen. Not like a beauty queen, but a queen mother and wife, a queen-governor and partner.  You waved like a leader. 

When John stood at that podium and set down his dreams in that painful way he had to, he handed them to you. In that very same way, I handed mine to you when Hillary–in that oh so painful way–did the same. I handed them to you and I know that you hold them to your heart and you nourish your children with them. You’ve shown them, with all the vibrancy of your joy, that they can be whatever they want to be and that you will stand under klieg lights, at podiums, behind microphones, in front of cameras, and the world to make it a reality.  You will carry the torch of change, even if you weren’t first to feel the flames burn.  You can name every casualty and every hero of that war, just as John can name the heroes of his own.  You can be the heroine for your little girls and mine.

Or not. 

Maybe I’ve already asked too much and the scars will deter you for all time.  I’d understand if you preferred your Alaskan chaotica to the task of symbolizing a movement. (Especially one consisting of women whose stances you may be diametrically opposed to.) Sometimes the hardest thing to be is the face. Sometimes the hardest thing to be is noticed.

Sometimes, most times, the hardest thing to do is go on. I can vouch for that.

You’ll go on to bigger and better days. With 5 children and imminent grandkids, I don’t think there was any chance you wouldn’t.

John will be the Maverick and he will be re-elected in 2010.  Somebody has to be left who knows where one aisle ends and the other begins.

Hillary will be Hillary and be brilliant at it, where she’s planted.  I think you can vouch for that too.

You will all go on and so will the country. Somehow.

But, still, I think I’ll stay in bed tomorrow.

November 24: I cannot finish this entry with abounding wishes of “hope” because that’s just not my nature.  However, I can believe, and do, that better days are ahead. I don’t know how many or how far from us they are now, but they’re there, beyond the horizon–waiting. My resolution for the year, made too early and while I still recall, is to remember that. I wish the same for everyone.

Care deeply about what you believe in. And never listen to anyone who says that you can’t or shouldn’t go on