I've Been Waiting for Today My Entire Life

Long ago (1980), in a galaxy far, far away, known as “Vermont”, there was an idealistic young college student. She wanted to change the world and believed that her generation was the one to do it. She was concerned about climate change (then referred to as “global warming” and/or “The Greenhouse Effect”). She was concerned about The Cold War/nuclear weapons. She was concerned about social justice.

In this remote galaxy of Vermont, this idealistic student went to a tiny, idealistic, experimental college called Goddard. It was full of idealistic, creative, imaginative students and teachers. At one point, she went on a group Independent Study trip to Europe (mainly Germany) for four weeks. Of course, she ended up in an alternative record shop, rifling through some political buttons they had. One had a beautiful sunflower on it, kind of like a Georgia O’Keefe painting, and it said something in German, like “Alternative die Grunen”. The girl asked around, “What does this button say?” She started asking questions about it. Thus she learned about the European Green Party at that time, and about social democracy/democratic socialism. And about how the European Greens were all about the environment, just like she was.

On that trip, the girl was studying European preschools and comparing them to American preschools, and she got to go and observe several preschools throughout Germany, Denmark, Holland and a few other countries. All of this led to the girl learning all about countries that value and invest in their children, and how, in Democratic Socialism/Social Democracy, there is federally funded early childhood education, and maternity and paternity leave, and “single payer health care”, wherein everyone is covered, it comes out of taxes just like our public schools do, and that’s that. No in-network and out-of-network (not that that was a thing yet in the states—most people had indemnity insurance back then), no being afraid to leave your job because you would lose your health insurance, no deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance or premiums. Health care is paid for by taxes, and everyone has it. Early childhood education is also available to everyone, and VALUED. Federal maternity and paternity leave is a thing. WOW! I’m a democratic socialist, she realized! (She also thought, at the time—1980--that she wanted to join the Green Party but, much to her sadness and frustration at the time, upon returning to the States, she learned that it didn’t even exist yet here, which is fine, as now—2020--she detests the American Green Party, so we’ll skip past that part of our tale—she remained a Democrat, as she already was, and still is to this day.)

The girl returned to Vermont, energized to the hilt re social democracy, which NO ONE was talking about at the time. ZERO humans in America. And she learned, when she brought it up excitedly to everyone she knew, that it was “too idealistic” and/or a commie pinko idea that only a naïve, young hippie-type would possibly have/entertain. Still: this is me, she knew: this is my heart, these are my priorities for my country and politics and the world. This is what makes sense. She so wished that there was an American equivalent to the European Greens, or that her own party would be so concerned about the environment, and want to change America’s investment priorities so that we would invest in PEOPLE, and not the military-industrial complex and tax cuts for the very rich. But her country was going the EXACT OTHER WAY: Reagan had just come to power in the 1980 election, her first election, at age 18 (she voted for CARTER, just for the record). Her country went the exact opposite direction from ALL of her beliefs, and would remain on that horrendous track for her entire adult life. But, back to 1980 for a moment…

Just a year later, this young college student in the galaxy known as “Vermont" started to hear about a young mayor over in Burlington, who also was for single payer health care. Wait—someone else in my country is talking about single payer health care?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, yes, and guess what: HE’S A DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! TRUE STORY! Guess what else? He cares about the environment, and the nuclear arms race, and maternity and paternity leave, and child care. He cares about social justice. His name is Bernie Sanders and he basically had me at ALL OF THAT!

For many years to come, Bernie remained our little secret, up in Vermont. I remember, in 2004, talking with some fellow Al Gore aficionados, as we were all crestfallen at the realization that Gore was NOT going to run in 2004. Who did we want to run? Who was our dream/ideal candidate? Some names were bandied about, and then I—by the way, I’m the girl in this story, if you haven’t figured that out yet—said, you know, I REALLY wish Bernie Sanders, who is a great Senator up in Vermont, would run. About 85% of people in that conversation had no clue who he was. The other 15% said that would be great but, one, it will never happen. And, two, “you’re too idealistic, Edna. No one would ever vote for Bernie.” Too idealistic. Too idealistic.

WELL: I meant to post this early this morning, long before now, late afternoon, but I’ve been too busy at my grueling job. The young girl is all grown up now, with a really stressful job and boss, which, among other things that unfolded in her life, resulting in the aforementioned “growing up”, you would think might have resulted in all the idealism, spirit and hope being ground clean out of her. But NO!!! I’m still the idealistic, democratic socialist environmentalist HIPPIE FREAK FLOWERCHILD THAT APPARENTLY TERRIFIES THE JAMES CARVILLE’S OF THIS WORLD only now: there are so many more of me!

I am so gratefully glad and gladly grateful that I lived to see this day, 2/11/2020, the 2020 New Hampshire primary and BERNIE SANDERS is the FRONTRUNNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey, our country may have ended last week but I still have an ember of hope, and its name is BERNIE…and us. “Not me, us!”

GO, New Hampshire, vote, vote, vote!

I've been waiting for this moment my whole life.

Goodnight Moon

I'm dreading tomorrow. I don't want my country to end.

The senate is about to set two terrible, America-altering precedents that POTUSes are above the rule of law, and that it is perfectly fine for POTUSes to obstruct Congress and thus they (the Senate) are about to end the separation of powers, in addition to the rule of law.

I don't want to go to bed tonight, as maybe somehow that will prevent tomorrow from coming.

I'm exhausted and can't believe everything going on all at once in our country in just the last few days and upcoming days. I feel shell shocked on so many fronts. No clue how I'm going to function at my demanding, stressful job tomorrow. Barely made it on time today after the Iowa Caucus situation went into the wee hours and beyond yesterday. And now here I am up way too late again. If you sleep, you miss something epic in America right now.

Yet, if you don't sleep, that is a bad thing. So...good night, moon, and all. Good night, America as I know it, this is maybe the last time I can say that.