Ok, been a while....

Let's see, what's been happening. Well, my latest obsession, electoral politics, paid off handsomly when Barack Obama was elected on Nov. 4th. Like many, I wept tears of joy, relief, sadness, grief, you name it. I have moved on to obsessively reading everything I can get my hands on that deconstructs both the Obama and McCain campaigns and find myself feeling quite awestruck about the effectiveness of the Obama strategy. They really dug in and focused on the 50 state approach that Dean was promoting and the payoff is rather sweet. And to think that Sarah Palin had the gall to mock community organizing, which appropriately was the undoing of her lofty and utterly outrageous aspirations. Ahhh sweet victory...

Now I am trying to keep my fears for Obama and his family's safety from overcoming my happiness at his election. Watching the 60 minutes interivew the other night, I kept having this sense of excitement coupled with a sense of dread, wondering if it is possible that this man and his family can survive this presidency. I have faith in his protection but the looming anniversary of Kennedy's murder makes me nervous all the same.

In other arenas life goes on much as usual...work remains somewhat unfulfilling and the tone of State government has grown so dour that it feels at times that all is lost. There is so much that the children and families who receive the services our agency oversees need that we are unable to provide or unwilling to figure out how to provide that it makes the effort feel futile. The rising poverty will undoubtedly create a higher demand while the shrinking financial pot will make meeting that demand even more difficult. The impending Holidays are likely to be anything but merry for many.

Home life continues to challenge tremendously. I have reached a point where the choice is clear but the ability to exercise it does not yet exist. I am financially trapped in a relationship I no longer want and feel like there is no end in sight. The future losses that will accompany its end are hard to imagine. This is the result of my own tendency to build my life around another, a tendency which I seem to repeat over and over again...and one I will need to be keenly aware of should I ever consider another romantic entanglement in the future (though that thought seems totally unimaginable at the present moment). For now I live in a house of tension.

My girls, on the other hand, are thriving in spite of it. They are my constant affirmation that I am not completely screwed up, that I do have good instincts as a mother and that although there will surely be tough times ahead, I can honestly say I am raising good people. That is a miracle in itself and one I need to remind myself of almost constantly. The choices that I have made, especially the ones I would like to use to beat myself up, have not caused permanent damage that cannot be ameliorated. There will be resentments and pain, no parent can totally escape that. But in the end I think that the world will be a better place because of my children being in it.