I think at some point this may turn into a full rant over the dying art of aristry in figure skating. I am just too bummed over Castile/Okolski finishing 5th today in the pairs competition at US Nationals to get into it right now.

For the last hour and a half, I’ve been trying to figure out what to write here tonight. Finding the words to summarize the feelings and emotions of this day seem to be eluding me at this moment. I’ve tried searching for a picture that sums it all up, but I have yet to find the perfect one.

I thought about just leaving it at that–it was an amazing day, and trying to find the words or the photographs later, but this day is only going to happen once. I want to capture at least part of what my experience of this day has been.

I started watching television coverage early this morning, and now, at 10:30 at night, I’m still watching. Although I couldn’t be there in person, I didn’t want to miss a moment of this day. I’ve largely succeeded, having missed maybe an hour, hour and a half to cooking dinner.

As I told someone else earlier, as I set here tonight, I feel a peacefulness and calmness I haven’t felt in a long while. It’s kind of like I feel like a weight as been lifted after not realizing for so long it was there. I feel a sense of freedom I haven’t felt in 8 years. As someone I know said election night, this is what hope feels like.

I thought a lot about the things I mentioned last night–the day I thought President Obama should run, the day I signed the petition. As I was watching today’s events unfold on television, they seemed surreal at times. It seemed amazing that this day actually came to pass, and I felt like I needed to pinch myself more than once.

I thought, too, about race and civil rights and the struggle that has essentially gone on even longer than this country has formally existed. We still have a long way to go, but what a long way we’ve come. For the first time in the history of the United States, a person who is not a white man is President. Growing up, I always heard “anyone can be President.” It was one of those things I believed in theory, but on some level, doubted in some ways. What an amazing barrier we have broken. President Obama is just the first. I’m glad to witness it in what I hope is relatively early in my lifetime. Now, I truly believe, that one day, we’ll eventually come to have had Presidents of both gender, all races, all beliefs, and perhaps even sexual orientation. Some say that a day like that will never come–where none of that list will truly matter. My answer to that is that 50 year ago, no one would have thought that this day would actually come to pass either.

All in all, it’s been a historic, emotional, and overwhelming day. It’s been so many things.

I think, at the end of the all, all you can really say, is “What a day.”

I think most anyone who knows me and is reading this blog knows of my disdain for George W. Bush and the Bush Administration. I’m a Democrat through-and-through and, obviously, did not vote for him in either 2000 or 2004. The 2000 Presidential election was the first that I was old enough to vote in. I was a junior at the University of Kentucky during the fall of 2000. I’m a worrier by nature, but mixed in for my general concern over my genetics, cell biology, German, and physics courses, I felt this over all impending feeling of doom as election day approached. Despite the relative peace and economic prosperity of the time, it seemed like most of America had turned against the Democratic party because of President Clinton’s personal actions. The “radical right”–which I despise as I consider their behavior to largely be hypocritical, selfish, and not really so muchly so in tune with the actual teachings of Jesus, had been fired up. I hoped that somehow Al Gore would prevail… I still remember exactly the steely gray sky the day that the Supreme Court declared Bush the winner. I knew that no good was going to come of it. I dreaded the next 4 years.

Fast-forwarding 4 years, by the time the Presidential election of 2004 rolled around, I was a 24-year-old, living in California and attending graduate school. Most of my 2004 revolved around studying for my qualifying exam that August and trying to work on something kind of big for my research. John Kerry had not been my initial choice for our nominee. My pick had been Gen. Wes Clark. By the time the California primary was held that March, Kerry had, basically, already wrapped everything up. Still, I stood behind him, knowing that although he wasn’t my first choice, he was still 100% better than Bush. By late July though, after hearing his speech at the convention, I was ready and set to be a foot soldier in John Kerry’s army. I feared what another 4 years of Bush would mean for my country. We were already involved in a war that seemed to be turning into my generation’s Vietnam; we didn’t seem to be going after the bad guys we really needed to be going after; and, instead of being more safe, my country was left safe. The world hated us. This is not to mention that the area of science I work in had been severely paralyzed by the ban on using federal research money for stem cell research. It broke my heart that people I know and could do so much good were being held back. That heart break was nothing though compared to when John Kerry lost the election. I had thought going in that it was impossible for us to lose, but yet we did. I felt hopeless and that things were only going to get worse. Four more years of Bush would nearly ruin this country.

I don’t have the time or the heart to list the events of the next four years in their entirety–Katrina, what happened to the economy…

In 2006, I started hearing about a young senator from Illinois by the name of Barack Obama. I remember reading an article on yahoo.com with a quote from him and thinking “someone ought to have a conversation with this man and get him to run for President.” A few months later, a petition appeared online, sponsored by the other Illinois Senator, Dick Durbin, encouraging Obama to run. I signed it.

Everyone told me I was crazy. There was no way a black man could get elected President of the United States. There was no way a first-term senator with relatively little experience could get elected. Time-and-time again people told me I was nuts. Hilary Clinton was going to be our nominee.

I continued to stand behind Obama. The more I learned and the more I heard him speak, the more inspired and sure I was that this person was the right person for our country. Our country needed him.

I spent much of the last eight years disappointed by and ashamed in this country. I was disheartened and discouraged and wondered what this place was coming to. I thought about moving to Canada or elsewhere overseas. I feared that the only place a good and honest man could still be elected President was in a universe penned by Aaron Sorkin.

Tomorrow, in a little less than 12 hours from now, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America.

I really shouldn’t be complaining at the moment. I’m in a nice warm house, with my little space heater blazing, and my electric blanket preheating my bed. I know it’s far colder in many other parts of the country. My current 8 degrees would likely seem balmy to those in the upper Midwest, as would the 0 degrees it’s supposed to drop to at the lowest point. Still, it’s cold, and I don’t like it.

In other news, I’ve got ER on right now, and as strange as it sounds, I’m starting to feel like a kindred spirit to a fictional character. Yeah, that is kind of crazy. Some of the self-doubts and life questions that the writers have had Neela dealing with late last season and into this season echo so much the same self-doubts and life questions I’ve been asking myself lately. I have a feeling that due to this being ER’s last season and all, Neela is going to get things figured out long before I do.