The Equation I Created: Hillary Means Hope

During the weeks leading up to the Pennsylvania primaries, our house was bursting with energy, excitement, joy, and life in a way we had not felt for a very long time. We had a volunteer staying with us, Mom worked tirelessly for the campaign doing everything from canvassing to being the food coordinator. We felt alive and energized in a new and exciting way.

I felt, for the first time in a long time, that I was a part of something bigger than me. Something so big and so important for the future of our world.

Hillary won big in Pennsylvania. We stayed on cloud nine for a few days. And then, suddenly we felt a sense of anomie. Where was our focus now? We had been flying on adrenaline for weeks and literally collapsed after the primaries.

Even before the Pennsylvania primaries, I found that I had come to equate electing Hillary Clinton as president with hope for myself.

What? You might be scrunching up your brows and saying: what does she mean by this?

I think I literally went silent after the primaries because I lost my sense of direction. And, now I feel like I'm losing it more. I had to write this post because what has been happening with Hillary has been directly related to what has been going on with me--and explains a great deal of my silence in blogging and emailing.

I've put off blogging about this topic because I am still holding out hope in Hillary. I know how to hold onto hope, even if it seems impossible. The last ten years of my life have been about fighting impossible odds. I'm afraid that if I even imply in a blog that this race is over, that Obama is the definitive Democratic nominee that I've in my own way done what I refuse to do: count Hillary out. And I can tell you, it's the last thing she would want me to do either.

Regardless of the outcome, I'm feeling disheartened, frustrated and even angry at the process. But that's not what this blog is about. It's not so much a blog about politics as it is about my own journey to make sense of hope and how personally I feel affected by Hillary.

Somehow, in the past few months I came to equate Hillary with hope in my own self. As hope for her has looked more and more grim, I have felt my own sense of hope flat line.

How do I explain this crazy equation I came up with?

This year is 10 years of this and ten years of that--my ten year college reunion, my ten year anniversary since graduation, my ten year anniversary of getting sick. Somehow I had to find a way to make 2008 seem like a year of possibilities rather than a year of endings and sad markers.

What I knew for sure this year was that Hillary meant hope to me. That if she was elected president my world and my future were bright along with the future of so many other people. Suddenly I had hope in America again. And, on a personal level, I had hope for my own life in a new and profound way.

Hillary's health care plan would change my life profoundly. Obama's will not. Hillary is ready to break the biggest glass ceiling a woman can break. She's going to change the lives of families, children, caregivers, and women in ways that no man ever will see clearly enough to do. She would make sure research into autism and all sorts of illnesses received its long-neglected and well-deserved funding. I believe in Hillary on all levels, but personally, I am depending on her to give us all, including myself, the health care I need and deserve, to stop living my life in fear of what Medicaid won't cover, to stop wondering what to do if I ever lost Medicaid, and to stop worrying what to do when my parents are gone to keep the government from taking any money they try to save for me.

I want Hillary to win for me and for my future. But I also want her to win for so many other reasons and for so many other people. I want her to win, too, for my mom to see that her hard work, and that of her generation has mattered and made all the difference.

When Hillary came to our town to speak and I was able to see her she spoke of people with visible and invisible disabilities. Have you ever heard a candidate say these words? Have you ever imagined that someone might say these words in a 35 minute stump speech? I never did. And in that moment I knew even more than ever before that she was the woman I wanted in the White House.

She inspires me beyond what I know how to express. The more she fights, the more I love her. The more she stands up in a man's world, the more I love her. The more I learn about her plans for America, and me, the more I love her.

I know most of my readers aren't Hillary supporters. I know some people feel disengaged and disenchanted with politics. I know some people feel it doesn't effect them.

I feel that every day of my life I'm affected by the decisions that our government has made about taking care of families, people with disabilities, the poor, women and children.

Where do I go from here? I can't turn on the news without hearing the pundits declaring it's over. I won't count Hillary out until she is out herself. I will support her taking her campaign all the way to the convention. I won't entertain thoughts of who to vote for until I know who the nominee is for sure, because on some level I still think she's going to pull this thing off.

In the meantime though, the hope isn't as bright as it was when we saw her take Pennsylvania big time. I've lost my sense of feeling like I'm a part of something bigger.

And, mostly, I'm trying to figure out how separate the equation I made--that having Hillary as president is essential to my own healing and hope.

How do I do this? How do I create a healthy balance for me and for Hillary?

Blessings,

Emily

Photo: Front page photo from our local newspaper of Hillary speaking in our town. Yes, this is the exact view we had of her!