Thirty Something

Congratulations, President Obama, for securing a second term!  I think I would have liked to see a Jill Stein presidency, but no third-party candidate has held office since the 1850s.  It’s terribly unfair that the debates are not open to other parties.  What’s up with that?  Anyway, he’s not such a bad guy.  You have to like a dude who makes it home for dinner with his family, every night, even if he did have to spend his wedding anniversary on a double date with the Romneys.

I know people have been asking where all the hope and change went over the last four years, but give the guy a break.  I still have hope, and I think there is change, albeit slow.  Humankind is pretty resilient on the whole, so unless there’s an asteroid or a nuclear war, I don’t think I’m in a terribly bad place in history.  Not the best place, mind you, but my husband was in London for a week last month and I, in California, held his face in my hands (via iPad) and had a conversation with him almost every one of those days.  When I was a kid and my dad was deployed for half a year at a time, my mom didn’t have that luxury.  If I were her, I’d have been going crazy.  Heck, Ben and I wouldn’t be allowed to marry legally, if it were the 1960s.

I kind of wince when people glorify the past, because I’m acutely aware that if I were to exist in any previous era, I’d either be indentured, enslaved, or living in a grass hut and squatting out babies on an island plagued by monsoons.  Or dead.  Now is a pretty good time for me.  I know not everyone is so lucky, but I think that awareness might be key to progress.  It’s mind-blowing how there can be such wealth and poverty.