I Remember

 Does fifteen years feel like a long time?

It's more than a lifetime for the kids I teach. It's about half the time I have lived on the Left Coast. As a matter of fact, it was here in California where I cast my ballot for one Barack Hussein Obama for president. 

Fifteen years ago. And he won. For a short while, things felt like there were going to be fine. We had turned back John McCain and his "rogue" running mate Sarah Palin. The Bush administration suddenly felt like they were ancient history. The election of 2008 was going to change things. We were hopeful again. No more war. No more racism. No more division. We elected the guy who told us just a few years before that there were no red states, and there were no blue states, only the United States. 

We elected that guy. He was President of the United States. 

And he was black.

How could we ever look back? 

Well, fifteen years later, looking back is what I am doing. Wondering how we found ourselves in the position we currently find ourselves. The divisions that we had hoped to put to rest when Barack Obama took the stage in Chicago's Grant Park have grown deeper and more bizarre. 

Hope has been replaced by desperation. All the possibilities we envisioned on that chilly night in November 2008 have been cashed in on business as usual. 

But it helps to remember that once there was a spot for happily ever aftering. Even if it was only a moment in time fifteen years ago. 

It could happen again.