Obama Gives Me Hope

I’m not doing very well lately.
Today was the worst I’ve felt in quite a while, I think at least since early last fall, before I got my light. Today I felt the hopelessness overwhelm me again. I woke up feeling overly depressed for the second day in a row, and I just couldn’t shake it, in spite of today’s sunshine. I called a few friends; no one was available. I just needed someone to sit with me, to be a warm body next to me, to make me feel grounded, that I had something real and physical to hang on to.

On days like today, I feel that I am on the brink of losing it. Cracking up. Going completely and totally crazy. I saw a picture of psych-ward Brittany Spears on a tabloid today, and wondered if that was going to be me (you know, sans a million dollars and rock-hard abs). I feel that I’ve totally screwed up my life, irreparably. I figure that I’ve alienated everyone I know. I’m messing up school--even if I graduate, who will hire me? Who in their right mind could give me a good reference? I see the scene in my head: “Sure, she’s a great girl, but half of the year, she’s a complete nut-job.” I’m not dependable. I feel like a screw-up. Today, my visions, or nightmares, of the future include a cardboard box beneath an underpass, a mental hospital, or not actually surviving to middle age.

I called out of work, skipped class, decided to try to recover some sense of myself. I’d left my computer at some friends’ house last night, so I went over to pick it up. Their kitchen was full of people making pancakes and laughing at 11 a.m. on a weekday. I stuck around. I sat in the living room checking my e-mail, listening to the laughter, and trying to convince myself that I could find hope. I wondered if anyone saw my despair in my eyes. I debated whether or not to be honest with them if they asked what was up.

And I was honest, at least partially. “You have no idea how many of my friends have told me they thought they’re going crazy,” Israel said. That helped a little.

I checked my e-mail from their living room floor, and found that Barack Obama[‘s campaign] had e-mailed me. “Michelle Obama comes to Lincoln!” the e-mail read. It was 11:10 a.m., and the doors opened downtown for Michelle’s speech at 11:30. Yesterday Israel, Eric, Katie, and I tried to go see Barack speak in Omaha, but we gave up after waiting four hours. “Hey,” I called, “Michelle Obama’s speaking at the Lied Center!”

On a spontaneous whim, Eric and I made the trip downtown, got decent seats, and sure enough, unlike her husband, Michelle did not make us wait long to hear what she had to say. I, obviously, was feeling hopeless. I didn’t feel that life in general had hope, let alone have any for politics and government.

I can’t tell you how refreshing Michelle Obama’s speech today was. She brought me incredible hope. She made me feel that a bright future is possible. If I’d had any doubts about Obama’s message, or his qualifications for the presidency, they are gone. While yesterday it seemed like a cheesy campaign slogan, “Yes we can!” has meaning to me now.

Part of me is a little afraid to have hope for a politician to actually do big, good things in Washington. Part of me thinks that there will never be universal health care, that the poor will always be disastrously poor and the rich obscenely rich, that we will never educate our children well or equally. But I don’t recall ever regretting experiencing hope. I think Obama is a candidate who can unite people and bring them the hope of a better, more equal future, and perhaps the only candidate who can do that. At this point, while I think he’ll make a fantastic president, I’d vote for him even if he wouldn’t. I’d vote for him because I think he can make the country hope again, and I’d vote for him because he is married to Michelle, and that woman has her head on straight. Our country needs an intelligent, articulate, educated black woman for a first lady almost as much as we need hope.

My hopeful feelings didn’t last long. Soon after arriving home after the speech, I was tearful and discouraged again. But it was important for me to be reminded of what hope feels like. I have to believe that a month from now I’ll be okay. I have to believe that I’ll be able to salvage my life. I have to believe that I’ll be able to pull up my grades, apologize to the people I’ve let down—including myself—and move forward. I have to believe that I’ll be okay.

If Obama becomes president, maybe we can all be okay.