A New Day

Hi all! I haven't been able to write in awhile due to a massive overload of schoolwork. Today, however, I wanted to share with all of you an excerpt from my journal written earlier this week. I hope everyone out there is doing well and I promise some pictures from a trip to Pittsburgh, an anniversary trip to Baltimore, and a Monday Night Football game very soon!

My best to all of you,
Neen


November 5, 2008

Nearly my whole life, I have been told that I am naive. I concede that I prefer to seek out the good in people, but refute wholeheartedly that it blinds me from reality. Yesterday, I saw my country come together in a way that I've never witnessed before. I remember distinctly how we clung to one another fearfully following the events of September 11, 2001, but I have never seen so many of us unite in jubilation.

Across the nation, I saw videos of citizens dancing in the street with tears streaming down their faces. I saw men and women of every race, many of whom who realized for the first time that the American dream can be real for them. Future history books will remember this election as one where the American people denounced the politics of fear and voted instead for hope.

Yes we can.

I do not deny that the road ahead is rocky, but a step has been taken in a positive direction. One day at a time, we must rebuild our economy and repair our relations with the rest of the global community. We awake today to new responsibility. We must not become complacent. It is time to hold our elected officials accountable, remembering that these civil servants represent all of us.

In a speech earlier this year, now President-elect Obama said, "We are the change we have been waiting for." Our moment has at last come, and we look toward the future with a new kind of hope--one that is almost tangible. I have confidence in our newly elected leader and hope that our nation can come together regardless of party affiliation, creed, sexual orientation, or gender. We are ONE country, and can no longer define ourselves by what divides us. Instead, we must choose to remember what unifies us. We are all Americans and we are all in this together. We can either fight that and crumble from within, or we can decide to embrace it and make this nation stronger than it has ever been.

In his speech last night, Obama encouraged the American people to "summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other."

I truly believe it's possible. Let's face this new day together. Let's be a better future.

Let's be that change that we've been waiting for.

Yes we can.

Yes, we will.