A New Day.

Someday, I know that someone will come to me - a niece or a nephew or even my own child (if plans change drastically!), and ask me about the night that President Obama was elected. I'll tell them about eating dinner at the bar of the local pizza place, watching the first precincts report with a pounding heart. I'll tell them about how I couldn't bring myself to believe, even as I watched Pennsylvania and New Hampshire turn blue, how all I could get out was a strained "oh my god," over and over again. I'll tell them about watching the crowds pour into the park in Chicago. I'll tell them how finally, at the end of the President-elect's speech, I broke down, laughing and crying and allowing myself to see that it had happened, that it had really happened. That the American people spoke up, and that we spoke up in a big way. I'll tell them that even though there were set backs last night - school levy's that didn't pass, the passage of Prop. 8 in California, congressmen with worrisome records relected here in southern Ohio - the next generation had just claimed America's future. I'll tell them that this was just the first step to change.

But what I'll really remember was the day. I'll remember how people smiled quietly at each other standing in line at the polls, and how once we got outside, those smiles turned to grins. How it didn't seem like there were any strangers on the street. How students on campus were cheerfully shouting, "happy Obama day!" to each other. How when Nate rode the bus to work, everyone was singing and laughing and shouting. How a man took a sip of his free Starbucks coffee and said, "tastes like change." How all of Cincinnati seemed connected and united, in a way that I've never experienced before. How looking around me, I knew that even if Obama didn't win, this wasn't meaningless. Something happened yesterday, and I'll never forget it, even if I'm never fully able to understand it.

This will be my last political post for awhile, but I'll leave you with three words:

Yes. We. Did.