Calling Myself Out
I’m wondering how you’re all doing today. I don’t know about you, but my days of the week are all screwed up. I don’t know if I’m starting the week or ending it.
I’ve started about five different iterations of tonight’s post and scrapped them all. I guess I don’t want to waste your precious time on blah-blah-blah, and what I’ve been coming up with has definitely been classic blah-blah-blah.
So let’s see, what am I thinking about?
I found myself welling up a couple of times with pride and hope while watching the news tonight. The diversity of the freshman class of Representatives in the House is phenomenal. And to see in their eyes and demeanors the depth of respect these incoming Reps have for the honor of serving our country and the excitement they have for the prospect of making a difference makes my heart swell.
Serving Our Country
It also frustrates me a little. If I’m honest, I have to admit that I’d love to be in government. I’d love to serve my country in that way. But I’ve always known I’d never be electable – for a myriad of reasons, what I ‘do’ for a living now being an especially obvious reason.
But let’s face it; I speak my mind way too much, too. And my poker face would be non-existent when listening to people lie. Good grief, I think I would’ve had a hard time serving in government back when people were collegial and respectful of basic norms of integrity and decency. But now? I’d strain a muscle trying to muzzle myself from calling out bullshit.
If there was something I secretly aspired to as an attorney, it was to become a judge. I pride myself on my ability to listen with an open mind to anyone and everyone, and give even the most egregious conduct or bizarre positions the dignity of being heard while maintaining impartiality. But becoming a judge where I live and work(ed) as an attorney necessitates becoming a political animal. Hence, I knew I was doomed. I’m just not cut out to say and do what apparently needs to be said or done to get elected.
Sometimes We Need To Relinquish Aspirations
So that’s one set of aspirations I sincerely held that I needed to relinquish fairly early in my life, in spite of my law degree. And yet it frustrates me still, especially in our present era, when we are constantly asked to ‘be the change.’ And to ‘make a difference.’
This is not a poor me post. It’s a simple reaction to my heartfelt pride in witnessing our country finally electing so many women (I think the figure is 100 in this 100th year since women gained the right to vote) and particularly women of such rich and varied backgrounds. And wishing I could be a part of that movement.
One moment I saw that particularly caused me to shed a tear of shared joy was witnessing the two Native American women embracing and shedding tears themselves. And there were so many other great stories. Stories that embody the American Dream, like the freshman Representative from Colorado, I believe, whose parents were refugees from Eritrea (Joe Neguse). This is what our country is all about!
So, I guess the point of this post is to both celebrate a new era in our nation’s politics, and also reveal the obvious: that we don’t always get to manifest our secretly held dreams. At least I didn’t.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.
(T-1058)