What a Difference…

…a year makes.  Here I am, just freshly turned 39 — yesterday, in fact.

A year ago, when I had just turned 38…I went on vacation and suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning that put me in a Virginia hospital.  The effects lasted for a month afterward.

My marriage was severely on the rocks.  We hit a low time in our relationship, one I don’t wish to repeat.

My job was stagnating.  Day in, day out, the same thing.

Today?  We’re planning to go back to Virginia in just under two weeks.  I’m scared of it, a bit, and excited for it, a lot.  My marriage?  Still kind of crummy…not a lot of happiness in our house, but there’s more than there was, and I think we’re on the mend.  I’m leading a $500,000 project at work, with actual hopes for recognition, if not a real raise or anything.

And best of all, I’ve been accepted to a decent MBA program and will be starting classes in a bit less than five months.  My life will be crazy.  I will be driving three hours to school every other weekend.  I will have reading and homework every night, and it will take time from my family.  My work will not slow down, and I will be frazzled.  And I’m planning on enjoying every last minute of it.  (maybe not the increased screaming from my 2-year-old twins)

I am actually working TOWARD something.  Something better, at that.  I have a purpose.  I have a goal.  I have something to make me feel young and alive.  I need to feel young and alive.  I’m ashamed at all of the years I’ve wasted, and I don’t want to do that anymore.  In 2011, when I am 41 years old, I will hold a fresh, new MBA in my hands, and I will hit the ground running.  I will get a new career and earn twice the money I earn now, and I will provide a better life for my family.

They surely deserve it.

It Starts Today

Well, today was the big day.  January 20, Inauguration Day.  The Big O got sworn in — my guy — Barack Obama.

Today, I know that most of my Republican co-workers are going to have a radical paradign shift…now, whenever anything bad comes from Washington, it’ll be because of Obama, and whenever anything good happens, it’ll be because of all the people in Congress, and/or because the administration will be “riding a wave” or “along for the ride.”

Yesterday, anything bad that happened was because of the “damn Democrat Congress,” or was “out of Bush’s hands,” while anything good that happened yesterday was because of Bush’s leadership skills.

Wait.  What?

I, personally, am ecstatic about our new President.  I ditched work for an hour to watch the inauguration on tv…happened to be on Fox News (fair’n balanced coverage) so the commentary ran to the women’s coats, the Obama girl’s proclamation that their dad’s speech “had better be good,” and glowing praise for the senior ex-President Bush.

Still, it was a moving moment for me, sitting in the waiting room of the Cardiac Cath Lab at the hospital where I work, next to a man who claimed to be in the Color Guard at President Truman’s funeral, watching the National Mall packed to the rafters with people — happy people, people waving U.S. flags and cheering — and listening (live!) to our new President delivering a rousing call to action for the American people, on the Capitol steps, under a thin, January sun.

I hope he can deliver.  I hope he sets the tone for the whole administration, and I hope he can get the things done that he wants to get done.  I guess that means that I have hope.

Yes We Did

It’s been a month since my last post.  The big budget bugaboo hasn’t put me out on the street or starved my cat to death or anything.  We’re actually doing better now — the price of gas dropped from $4.29 to $2.11 / gallon.  I filled up the car yesterday for $35…a month ago it cost nearly $70.  Now our family budget is merely elastic-waistband tight, not snare-drum-head tight.

So that huge bailout plan passed about a month ago…and we haven’t seen a single benefit from it yet.  The economy still reeks.  The news this morning said the NYSE dropped 10% in the past two days — yet another record drop.  Those record drops happen so often now that I’m blase’ over the whole tanking-economy thing.  Isn’t that sad?

And we elected Barrack Hussein Obama as our next President of the United States.  I’ll say it right up front: I never thought I’d see a black man elected to the presidency in my lifetime.  I sincerely thought that the combined prejudice of Americans would never let that happen, and I’m elated to have had that stereotype shattered.  Obama’s acceptance speech, given at midnight on a Chicago stage on Election Day, moved me to tears — not just through the power of his words, but from the realization that I may soon become proud to be an American once again.

The past eight years of Bush have severely shaken my pride in America.  The mere act of having him *appointed* by the Supreme Court in 2000 shook my faith in Democracy.  Another thing I’d never thought I’d see…I saw:  a president who was not elected, but appointed…and contrary to the popular vote, as well.  I could not believe that in 2004, the American people simply handed the country back to him.  My wife actually cried.  “How could they just do that?” she cried, “we just gave the country back to the super-rich.”  She was right, look at us now.

After eight years of Dubya attacking anyone and anything that farted sideways at the U.S., playground-bully style, the world views us as just that — playground bullies.  They’ve called the Bush presidency a “regime,” something we reserve for people like Saddam Hussein or Communism.  The world views Bush as a dictator, a despot, an unstable tyrant…and via a sort of “trickle-down” theory…they view the American people as some mixture of sad victims, spoiled brats, vulgar cretins and ignorant hicks.  Americans abroad are not greeted warmly, nor welcomed with open arms.  We’re the loudmouthed, tackily-dressed buffoons ruining everyone else’s quiet breakfast.

Well, the world has welcomed Barrack Obama with open arms.  It’s amazing.  I’m glad I’m here to see it.  Yes, I voted.  Yes, I voted for Barrack Obama — we voted for Barrack Obama.  Yes We Did.