11.03.08

For Barack Obama

Posted in Politics at 10:50 am by ducky

Andrew Sullivan wrote an endorsement of Barack Obama that made me cry.  It wasn’t that his prose was so poetic that I got a form of Stendhal Syndrome.  It wasn’t that he inspired me.  It was that he reminded me, in clear and vivid detail, just how badly Bush messed up the country.  He brought up all of my grief and dismay about — and all of my shame for — my government’s actions.  He reminds me why I left my beautiful country.

One of my best friends is Lebanese.  In about 1996, I asked him why he never talked about Lebanese politics.  Had he just written it all off?  No, he said that it was too painful to talk about.  At the time, I didn’t understand.  Now I do.

My productivity in the past few weeks has gone way down as I continually hunt for more stories about the election.  It’s a destructive, addictive, action.   It’s not like me reading the stories are going to change the outcome of the election. ( I voted several weeks ago, so it’s not like the stories are going to change my vote.) I know that it is pointless to read about the election, but I can’t help it, I must read — because every story that I read about Obama leading gives me a tiny flicker of hope.

I left.  I turned my back and walked away.  So why does it still matter?  The best analogy I can think of is of being in love with an absolutely wonderful man who two or three times per year beats the crap out of me.  I’ve metaphorically walked away and found another — one who is incredibly sweet and nice, but who isn’t as good a fit as my ex.  There is nothing wrong with my new beau, and I admit to a little bit of excitement at something novel.  But the fit isn’t quite right: he puts the toilet paper on backwards, he really likes foods I can’t stand, and he just doesn’t have the same shared context that I do with my ex.  I have to keep explaining things to him that my ex understood right away.  My new beau is certainly a fine and wonderful person, and I could be very content with him for the rest of my life, but there isn’t that same level of passion.  Really I want a reformed version of my ex, one who fits but who doesn’t beat me.

I want Obama to win.  Very much.  I then want him to get my beautiful country out of this mess.  (Er, these messes.)  I want that very, very much.  I’d like to think that someday I might have the option of coming home.

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