Woohoo!

I've been struggling for words since last night, which seems odd, considering how many feelings I've been bombarded by in the last 24 hours.

I believe we've elected a president that I actually feel proud of. Not the guy that was just less terrible than the other guy, not the guy who won by default for lack of real opposition, not the guy with great policies but a messy personal life, but a guy that I believe in.

We've elected someone other than the traditional white male. And that's huge for African-Americans, huge in a way that I don't even think I can understand, but it's huge for white folks too. We've developed a picture of racism in our country, a picture of ourselves as people we needed to be ashamed of, and last night proved that wasn't true. We're not who we've been told we are, we might not even be who we thought we were.

I've heard someone in politics talk about honesty and unity and hard work and make me believe that he meant it. Last night, I didn't hear someone who was trying to tie himself to a past in order to lift himself, but someone who was trying to tie us to our own past in order to lift us.

We've elected someone out of hope instead of fear. We've been in a dark and hopeless place, and worse, everyone keeps telling us that it really isn't dark and hopeless. Finally, someone shows up, acknowledges the truth, but says that there's a way out, that together we'll find it, that it isn't going to be easy, but that it WILL happen.

Everything seems trite, but I just can't express how proud I am that so many people opted to believe in the process, to believe in hope, to believe that the world can be a better place. We can be the version of ourselves that we want to be and the version of ourselves that we believe we once were, and I think we're all ready to do the work.