'tis a gift

I'm quite sure that not everyone is as tingley and happy and full of hope and peace as I am after watching that inauguration. I cried because I saw millions of people braving the cold to be part of something enormous. I laughed at the flubbing of the vows because I know that just as we all probably did on our wedding day, Obama feared doing exactly what he did and he did it with a smile. We all fear stuttering during vowtaking, it's serious stuff. I swooned during Aretha's performance, I talked about Sponge Bob during the ceremony because I am, above all else, a mother and 65% of the time my mind is operating on the level of a 5 year old.

I know that some of you wanted the other guy up there, and I respect that. Your church told you that JWVR (Jesus Would Vote Republican), or maybe your daddy or your drill sergeant or your husband told you that you should vote McCain, maybe you secretly (or not-so-) feel that white is right, or maybe you actually took the time to review every line of your finances and run it through both tax plans and you just didn't see how you would come out of the next four years and be in the same comfortable position you are now. Maybe you really are rich enough to be slammed with the Democratic plan, and you might lose some stock, or a few assets, or that cushion that allows you to stay home with your kids or lets you take those swanky vacays once or twice a year. Because that is what this election was about right?

Right?

Oh, okay.

I feel your fear. It's scary. Change is scary. If you are scared, embrace it. Remember this feeling. Really feel it and remember it and let it sink in. Be scared. You have a better chance of fighting for your beliefs if you are scared and the time has come to speak up and fight and stop being scared and figure out how we can all come out on top. The dread that you might lose the big house or the boat or the country club membership. It sucks, doesn't it? It effing sucks to know that because of your government and the choice that the majority of your countrymen made you might not be sitting as pretty as you are right now in four years from today. But as you mourn your potential losses, know that so many people in this country are living just like that every day of their lives, every day of their entire lives they are afraid.

They aren't worried about losing luxuries, they are afraid of losing life. They stay awake at night to watch their child sleep because they can't afford medications and health care to cure a treatable disorder and there might not be a tomorrow for that baby. They work three jobs to keep a roof over their family. They are afraid they will lose heat, lose the car, lose the food stamps, lose the health benefits, lose the people who help them keep it all together, lose the house, and after they lose all that they will lose their children because after everything else is taken from them they will be deemed as unfit parents.

Do you think this doesn't happen? There is a running joke in social services that "the City/State/Township/County doesn't want your babies". No, we don't, but we don't want them living on the streets either so we will take them and place them with someone else. Someone who won't love them the way their mother does. These fears are very real. In every city/state/township/county in America.

I will go to sleep tonight knowing that there is a bit of hope in every one of those timid hearts today. I will rest easier because there is a chance that change will come, and my son may not have to watch his neighborhood crumble, his city shut down, his state grow poorer, and his country become even more divided. Change is coming. This change will not come in four years, nor in eight, but by the time Jake starts a family of his own there is a chance he may not have to worry about the things that I am working to protect him from.

That, beginning today, our country is working to protect him from.