1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?

I went to the BlogHer Conference which also sent me to Chicago for the first time. I also attended my first American Art Therapy Association Conference.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I may not always succeed, but every day I want to be a better person, no matter what day or holiday or year it is. For more insight into my thoughts on New Year’s resolutions, check yesterday’s post.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

I kind of lose track because everyone in my age bracket seems to be making babies, but no one really close that I can recall.

My Dear Smeagol

4. Did anyone close to you die?

My Nan, and my beloved lizard, Smeagol.

5. What countries did you visit?

I didn’t leave the country.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

I’d like to have an art therapy business that’s flourishing, and I‘d like some decent, affordable health insurance. Of course, since I’m pursuing the self-employment route, I’m not really sure how or if I can get the insurance. It’s an unfortunate conundrum.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Smeagol died July 12th. It still makes me cry. I want nothing more than to turn back time, and come back from Texas one day sooner so I can take him to his vet instead of the University of Pennsylvania Vet Hospital who charged us $200-something to tell us they didn’t have any reptile specialists on staff late at night even though I called to ask if they could help Smeagol before we even took him there, and then sent him home to die in my arms. It makes my heart hurt.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Well, had I filled this out yesterday prior to checking the mail, I might have said getting my Art Therapist Registration (ATR), but passing my board certification exam trumps that now.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Not having any of the job prospects for which I was most excited translate into an actual job.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I don’t know if it counts, but having the paramedics at my house responding to severe lows, and having Jason injecting glucagon in me a few times were incidents I could have done without.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

My laptop.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Jason. He saved me 2 or 3 times this past year, on top of the fact that he already puts up with my chronic disorganization and terrible housekeeping skills.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

The US government’s handling of health care reform, and the blatant disregard that so many Americans have for people who need health insurance. Appalled, depressed, and generally disgusted with humanity is only the tip of the iceberg.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Besides the mortgage, which is the case year after year, I’d have to say COBRA.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Umm, I’m board-certified, biotches!

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

I don’t really buy too much new music anymore because I’m old and I’m perfectly happy listening to music from the 80’s and early 90’s, so nothing really comes to mind.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?

a) Happier because now that I’m board-certified, I can get my LPC (licensed professional counselor) credential in Pennsylvania, and my career options should improve.
b) Obviously, I didn’t write this meme because I never would have included such a question.
c) Richer because I’m still getting unemployment for now, although that isn’t going to last for much longer so hopefully my private practice will start to show signs of life.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Exercised and gotten semi-organized.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

I feel like I should spend less time social networking because other things are being neglected. I haven’t figured out how to best manage those activities with other activities and obligations.

20. Did you fall in love in 2008?

I love Jason so that counts I think.

23. What was your favorite TV program?

Dexter, totally. I hate the blood and killing, which I know sounds ridiculous since it’s a show about a serial killer. We can’t watch it too close to bedtime because if we do, my nightmares are more vivid, but the show is so good that I tolerate the mental agony it causes me.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Lately, I’ve been hating our political system and society, but that probably doesn’t qualify.

Health Care Reform

25. What was the best book you read?

I don’t think I read a whole book. I started reading several books, all non-fiction. In order to study for the board certification exam, I read a good part of Handbook of Art Therapy by Cathy Malchiodi. I thought it was a great overview of the practice.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

I had tried Pandora a couple of years ago, and re-visited recently, but feel very meh about it. After trying blip.fm, I just don’t quite get it. Someone on twitter told me about last.fm though, and I’m digging that.

27. What did you want and get?

I wanted to pass my board certification exam. And I did.

28. What did you want and not get?

A job with awesome health benefits.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

I thought The Soloist was really good. Having worked with quite a few schizophrenic patients during my career, Jamie Foxx’s performance was very impressive.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I was 36, and I had a fabulous birthday. Allison & Wayne had a fondue party that coincided with my birthday, and Amy made homemade cupcakes complete with sugar-free frosting. There was singing, everyone politely tolerated my birthday tiara, and I had a grand time.

31. What was one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Health benefits.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

I’m quite sure I don’t have a personal fashion concept.

33. What kept you sane?

Jason. No doubt. Always.

Blogging, social networking, and my ever-increasing circle of diabetes friends would be a close second though.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I do loves me some Nathan Fillion.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?

I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, which probably got better health care before dying than a good many Americans, but that would be health care reform.

36. Who did you miss?

Since he died, it’s been Smeagol.

37. Who was the best new person you met?

No way can I pick one person since I met so many – Scotty J., George, Crystal, Kerri, Cherise, Suzanne, Jaimie… I know I’m forgetting people, so that’s just a sampling of everyone I was thrilled to meet. I was pretty stoked to meet Bobby Clarke too.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.

Believe in your goals and pursue them. Also, having lots of friends who believe in you can carry you when you forget to believe in yourself.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

It almost goes without saying, doesn’t it? “Don’t stop believin’”

A couple of days ago, Allison sent me an email asking if I’d like to participate on a blogger panel discussion about health care reform. Allison knows this issue is a hot button with me, especially since my COBRA countdown clock only has 4 more months remaining. My biological clock is totally defective, but in its place, I have the ever-deafening din of the COBRA clock, tick-tocking away. Not that I wouldn’t still have the same opinions about health care reform, henceforth known as HRC, otherwise, but my current health insurance predicament has just served to underscore my passion and interest in the topic. As if having a chronic disease that will suck the life and financial security out of me weren’t already enough incentive to back HCR.

I had no other plans, other than a date with Jason on the sofa to watch Game 1 of the World Series, which I was bummed about missing, but I figured this was a pretty unique opportunity that wasn’t as amenable to TiVo as a baseball game. I agreed, procured the details, and got myself onto a train to Manhattan with many of my fellow Phillies fans who were headed to the game yesterday afternoon. I missed the train I meant to take since I have that chronically late problem, but luckily the next train was an express that put me into Penn Station only a few minutes later than the train I intended to catch. A cab ride later, and I was on my way up an elevator to drink Diet Coke (how I love diet soda!), eat cheese (how I love cheese!), and talk about our national healthcare trainwreck with an interesting collection of others with a vested interest in the outcome of HCR.

The event itself was the Green Family Foundation Blogger Roundtable on Access to Healthcare. Kimberly Green, President of GFF, spoke about her philanthropy and advocacy work here in the US and in Haiti, and she shared her own experience as a woman living with stage 4 breast cancer. While fortunate to have the financial resources to pick up where her insurance company has abandoned her, as they so often like to do, she knows all too well that most people don’t have the same financial means, so she’s working to make healthcare more accessible. The discussion was moderated by Eve Gittelson, aka NYCEVE from the Daily Kos who is a prominent healthcare blogger and expert, and also one of the forces behind Public Option Please.

I’m still processing what was discussed, and the organizers will be putting together some video, and sharing the website URLs of the various attendees, so I’ll be posting more about it when those pieces fall into place, but there was one issue in particular that I wanted to highlight now since health care reform legislation is moving forward at a pretty good clip, and because it has everything to do with the prescriptions we take. Maybe Lantus, Humulin, Humalog and Novalog ring a bell with you? Unless you’re taking medical advice from people like Khaki Pants and Red Peacoat, medical professionals, and I use that term oh-so-loosely, who quite frankly, I wouldn’t let manage the diabetes of my friend Allison’s newly diagnosed diabetic cat, then you likely take one or more of those insulins.

You see, today’s insulins are part of a category of medications called biogenics which are produced from living organisms. Our favorite gate keeper to life with diabetes, Big Pharma, has conveniently lobbied to attach a little amendment, the Eshoo/Barton amendment, to HCR legislation that’s currently under consideration that would essentially make it forever, give or take a year, until we saw generic versions of the stinky liquid in the glass bottles that keeps us alive. No generic versions of the medications that we’ll be injecting until we take our last breaths mean their pockets will be generously lined for a very long time. As if poking our fingers upwards of 10 times a day to check our BG’s (on test strips that are a dollar a prick no less) weren’t enough bloodletting, they are determined to make sure we’ll be bleeding from our wallets until the end of days too.

We need to contact our lawmakers, and let them know we are not OK with this amendment. We need to let them know that as people with a very expensive life-long chronic disease, we can’t afford to rely on brand name medications for the rest of our lives. This legislation makes no sense to anyone but Big Pharma and the legislators who are in bed with Big Pharma, to be semi-polite about it. Why the heck should these giant corporations with their overpaid executives get so much protection? If anyone deserves some protection, it’s those of us who are stuck managing diabetes every minute for the rest of our lives. Please, read more about this. You can read Eve Gittelson’s assessment, and she provides plenty of additional links so you know what’s up, and just how ridiculous this little amendment is. Please, blog about it, tell your friends and family about it, ask people to call and email their legislators. Tell them we depend on these medications and we can’t afford to maintain the newer generation of insulins as brand names indefinitely.

Edit: Scott at Scott’s Web Log offers a more thorough discussion of the issue of generic biogenics that should be helpful to anyone who wants to communicate with their legislators any concerns about how to facilitate the availability of generic insulins, preventing Big Pharma from continuing to take advantage of our finances without compromising patient safety.

In case you didn’t hear, my trip to Cali got off to a bumpy start, and I don’t mean the turbulence on the plane – although that never really helps either. My flight was at 6:20AM. Yes, that’s right, AM. That, of course, meant getting to the Philly airport close to 4:20AM. Again, yes, AM. That meant leaving the house at 4, so I got up at 3:10AM. When I am alive and awake at 3:10, 99.99% of the time, it’s because I haven’t gone to bed yet, and speaking of going to bed late, I hadn’t gone to bed until 2AM simply because I’m the most disorganized, neurotic packer on the planet. So there were a confluence of time factors working against me this morning. However, I’m the dummy who booked the flight, so ya, there’s that.

I don’t crawl out of bed at 3:10AM for no good reason though. I’ve been super excited about hanging out with George tonight, and going to tomorrow’s Behavioral Diabetes Institute’s Celebration of Strength Luncheon where I’ll get to meet Suzanne, Cherise and Jaimie, and hear Kelly Close speak. A few hours of missed shut-eye in exchange for so much concentrated awesome is a trade I’ll take any day.

The last time I flew, which would have been the flight home from BlogHer in Chicago, I learned that diabetics can have food and beverage items that the non-diabetic crowd are strong-armed into discarding prior to passing through security. The advantages to co-existing with D are few, so I added this to my list. In light of this revelation, I decided I was bringing juice boxes with me. I have gotten through security like any regular person before by sending my pump and CGM transmitter through the x-ray machine, but I decided to go gangsta style, setting off alarms and bringing the uniforms a-running. Well, it wasn’t quite like that, but it sounds good, right? The pump and CGM on my person meant getting pulled aside and wanded. The lady was super nice though, and having gone through this on enough occasions that I’ve lost count, I just went with it. After she swabbed my pump, I assume looking for explosives, I was released from the little glass booth. Good thing they didn’t swab for my explosively fantastic personality! Hmm, maybe lack of sleep is getting to me a little. Anyway, then one of the dudes wanted to go through my laptop bag. A pocket and compartment later, he pulled out the juice boxes with the sinister Elmo and Clifford the Big Red Dog, terroristic threats if ever there were some, and told me I couldn’t take the juice.

“I have diabetes.” Not as catchy as “a la peanut butter and jelly sandwiches”, but at least as effective. Just like that, he said, “OK”, put the juice back in my bag, zipped it up and I was on my way to the gate.

Once at the gate, I looked down the corridor, in hopes of finding a news stand or food concession that might have some Diet Coke for sale. Since it was still too-early-o’clock, the metal gates and darkness stood between me and every conceivable diet soda option. “Shucks!” Or maybe something that sort of rhymes with that. I sat in resignation, assuming everything would open at 6AM, likely right at the time I would be getting seated on the plane, and proceeded to litter the tubz with my complaints. 5AM, sunshiny, happy Lee Ann is the stuff of urban legends.

Then I heard beautiful music in the form of metal gates opening, and turned to see glorious light shining from the CNBC News Stand behind me. Oh, a Diet Coke, would in fact be in my tired grasp before I boarded the plane. Once the gate was fully opened and I saw other frumpy, tired passengers-to-be loitering at the magazine racks, I made my way to the chilled beverages, and grabbed a soda. I also found some interesting-looking flavored pumpkin seeds that I figured might appease my belly until I arrived at my layover destination, the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport where I intended to get something that resembled breakfast.

Eventually we boarded. I put my rolly bag in the overhead bin, sat in the window seat, and stored my laptop bag at my feet. As I was stashing my soda in the pocket with the emergency airsick bag and the Skymall catalog, my unknown traveling companions arrived and seated themselves next to me, an almost middle-aged woman with dark hair in a red peacoat, and a middle aged man in khakis and a striped button-down shirt. I don’t like to talk to strangers seated next to me. Avoid eye-contact, keep my nose in my phone or a book or Skymall, if necessary, and hope no one tries to befriend me. I’m anti-social. Sue me.

Khaki Pants promptly initiated small-talk with Red Peacoat, saying something about her coat and staying warm I think. She had an obvious northern Middle-America accent, taken straight from Fargo – the movie, I mean, although feel free to substitute the city if you prefer. She even said she was from Brainard, and I might have involuntarily smirked. Then there was mention of how they were expecting their first possible snowflakes later that day or evening in North Dakota. Khaki Pants said something like, “So much for global warming.” Then Red Peacoat responded with something about global warming being a government conspiracy, and Khaki Pants chuckled. So that’s how it was going be, eh?

My eyes widened, I sat up a little straighter, and I reached for my Crackberry to make a comment about how it was going to be a long flight if I was going to have to listen to wherever this discussion was headed for the next 3 hours. My efforts were intercepted though as Red Peacoat incredulously mentioned how she had just heard Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize, and Khaki Pants made a noise like he’d chose curtain #2 and gotten a donkey and year’s supply of sombreros. As I was trying to digest this, and wondering if there was anything I could say that wouldn’t be perceived as rude, but would make them STFU, the conversation turned to health care reform. He said something disdainful that I can’t remember, but so-oh-clearly indicating his obvious disapproval, and she complained about paying higher taxes to pay for other people’s health care.

Goodbye inhibitions. I flipped out. I don’t even remember what exactly I said, but it was something like, “I have type 1 diabetes,” as I grabbed my pump and held it out as exhibit A, “and I need health care reform because my supplies and medications are unaffordable.”

She spun her head around to look at me, and said something about how I should just get a job, and get my own health insurance, and not expect other people to take care of me. Khaki Pants leaned across her to tell me that diabetes care wasn’t that expensive, or something along those lines.

You know when cartoon characters hallucinate, and their heads make that boingy noise as they rattle them back and forth to shake the image out of their minds? That’s more or less what followed on my end of this exchange. I held out my pump again, and said, “I’m on a pump, and diabetes care is in fact extraordinarily expensive.”

And then, he totally took me off guard. He said I should just go back to NPH and Regular because they work just as well as newer insulins, and they’re a lot a more affordable. I looked at him like aliens just crawled out of his nostrils, trying to make sense of what I was hearing, and all I could say was, “What??”

If he said anything after that, it didn’t register. I really can’t describe how upset I was after that. I had to hold back tears as I sat and absorbed their conversation, especially his nonsense about NPH and Regular. I stewed the entire plane ride, thinking of everything I wish I had said, most notably, “Please tell me what medical journal articles from which you pulled that asinine assertion,” and “How exactly are you qualified to make that claim?”

They didn’t talk the rest of the flight. She read a book, I think he took a nap. So at least I succeeded in making them zip it, but the flight was ruined. Not that there’s anything I really enjoy about flying, but the peaceful nap time I had planned was left on the tarmac in Philly. When we landed he struck up a conversation with her again, and get this. I didn’t fully hear what he said, but he said he was a doctor, which at least explained how he even knew NPH and Regular existed – although I don’t know if he was a medical doctor – and she said she was a registered nurse. I was waiting for Rod Serling to stand up and smile from a seat ahead of me, or someone to jump up and exclaim, “You’re on Candid Camera!”

My head is still spinning over it. This is the level of ignorance we face. I said a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been brought to tears, the really messy, hysterical kind, contemplating that people actually exist “out there” who are opposed to health care reform and think so little of us and our quality of life. I sat with tears in my eyes, looking out the window at the carpet of clouds beneath us, trying to wrap my mind around this man’s belief that I should essentially sacrifice my life so his money doesn’t go towards helping people with long-term medical care needs. My life was that expendable to Khaki Pants and Red Peacoat. Our lives are that expendable to Khaki Pants, Red Peacoat, and all the people out there like tham.

Disclaimer: If you don’t like my politics, you aren’t going to like this post. Consider yourself forewarned.

I’ve been like a nuclear power plant. Meltdowns two consecutive days in a row. I’m hardly an expert on nuclear power plants, but usually meltdowns are the result of an unfortunate constellation of precipitants, and my meltdowns are no exception.

I was actually feeling pretty good up until about mid-afternoon yesterday. The weather had been lovely, perfect even, the Eagles won on Sunday, my art room was usable again, and I’d been making use of it. While twitterbooking, I saw Health Care Reform from a Military Wife’s Perspective written by a military wife about how she supports health care reform that includes a government-run option. As a military wife, she knows a thing or two about using the government-run health care plan, TRICARE. I thought it was a great post from a voice worth hearing. She pointed out that it isn’t always perfect, providing examples of how it’s worked, and one example of a woman who had to make multiple phone calls to get a cancer screening moved up. Since I still needed to call my own insurance company for the fourth or fifth time in a month about my CGM sensors, the only differences I saw between what she has and what I have are that I’m paying a lot more than she is, and I’m doomed to lose mine in 5 1/2 months. I dare you to tell me how the grass is greener on my side of the fence.

I posted a link on Facebook, as I’ve done with several different articles, videos, and blog posts regarding health care reform over the last few weeks. A few comments were left, most of them from my friends who tend to be fairly liberal, regardless of their connection to diabetes, and a few comments from a friend who hasn’t warmed up to the concept so much. I presented a scenario like my own, a few months from losing COBRA and unable to afford being added to a spouse’s plan, and I asked if they had a choice between no insurance and government-run insurance, which they’d choose. The response was that they had planned ahead, chosen an industry that has traditionally provided good benefits, and although they expected to be unemployed within a year, they would be able to keep their health care benefits beyond that point.

My crucial error was a failure to plan ahead. This is when I started to unravel.

I’ve already been stressing over health care reform. Like anyone who’s uninsured, facing the prospect of such, or facing the prospect of needing a level of health care that is beyond their means, whatever the circumstances might be, I feel like my life is at stake. I’ve joked about death panels aplenty, but I guess the joke’s on me because Congress has become the ultimate death panel, sitting on a selection of reform bills that could mean the difference between steady access to insulin from now until I very hopefully grow old and die, and the ever-looming threat of inconsistent access at best. I think a lot of diabetics, even many of those with fabulous benefits, have considered what they would do if they found themselves uninsured. I think nearly all of them would tell you it’s a terrifying prospect, and I’ve certainly shared how scared I am.

I read articles, I watch news, I try to keep up with what’s happening on this issue, but most of what I read is about the ongoing conflict, the fire-and-ice ideologies etched in stone, the political agendas that take precedence over making sure people get the health care they need. Today, I read that Democratic Senator Baucus has a proposal he’s introduced, the most conservative of all the proposals so far, excluding a public option, but creating co-ops (I still need to find out how these would function). This bill is the result of months of meetings with a bipartisan committee assigned the task of assembling a plan that can be considered a compromise. From what I read, it sounds like there are parts that should make the GOP content, and parts that will be OK with Democrats. It doesn’t sound like the GOP is going to go for it though, and because it doesn’t have a public option and some other contentious issues, there are Democrats who are indicating they won’t back it either. I can’t say I’m enjoying the feeling that my life is in the hands of a bunch of politicians wrapped up in a pissing contest.

Then there’s my parents with whom I apparently disagree on every conceivable political and social issue there is. We went to dinner with them a few weeks ago, before the health care reform discussion really escalated. My dad and I used to have more or less good-natured discussions about politics when W was in office, but now that it’s a President I like, those days seem to be over. The discussion got heated. I semi-tuned it out partly because I wasn’t going to say anything nice, and partly because there is no reasoning with them. Jason and my dad got into it a bit. When we left, Jason said it was all he could do to bite his tongue and keep from saying what he really thought, a courtesy he granted only because they’re my parents. I’m sad to say it made me wish we hadn’t even gone out with them.

They went to that march in Washington last weekend, the one where people called for Senator Joe Wilson for President for behaving like a 10-year old, the one where people held up signs about how Obama is going to make us socialists. Never mind that things like publicly funded higher education, public schools, public libraries, Medicare, Social Security, and such are ultimately based on socialistic principles, and no one with more than two functioning brain cells is marching down Pennsylvania Avenue calling to get rid of those.

I saw that they were partaking in the ultimate conservative kool-aid bash, and it was like they were marching for the death penalty while I sit on death row, or advocating for a reduction in diabetes research spending. I’m sure they chatted with like-minded people about how Obama is the next Hitler, and Texas should take the red states with it when it secedes… oh, no wait, that last part was my idea. Also, I mean no offense to all my Texan friends, of whom I have plenty, but the politics there obviously aren’t my flavor. Anyhoo, I imagined my mom chatting with Robert Republican from Red State, USA, telling him how her daughter has type 1 diabetes, is about to lose her health insurance, but watching her daughter struggle to make ends meet and ration test strips would be less painful than paying extra taxes or seeing Obama succeed. The absence of family support for legislation that could make such a difference in my life feels like nothing less than betrayal. I don’t know how else to describe it. I also don’t know if this is the line I shouldn’t have crossed (I do that on occasion after all) in what I will and won’t discuss here on the blog, but since it was one of those aforementioned precipitants that led to my meltdowns, there it is. I’m sure you’re all dying for invites to the next family gathering.

My sole mission in life as an adult, thanks to diabetes and the American Dream, is to make sure I have health insurance at all costs. Between us, now that I’ve found what I think is a better mission in life, bringing art therapy and better mental health care to the diabetes community, the non-stop reminders that my true mission is being usurped by a quest to sell my soul to the private health insurance devil are wearing me down. I feel like it’s my civic duty to stay informed about an issue that impacts everyone, people with chronic illness in particular, so I watch, I listen, I read – and I find glimmers of hope, but mostly I find politicians who are as likely to find common ground with each other as I am with my parents. Turn off the TV and stop reading the headlines though, and the bad news doesn’t stop. My own family is content to count me as one of the millions of Americans who are either uninsured or unable to afford the health care they need.

Yesterday, I was hit by the feeling that people don’t care. People don’t care if other people go uninsured, if other people go bankrupt, suffer or die because they can’t get health care. People don’t care unless if affects them directly, either their health or their wallets. I guess there are people who think it’s my problem and no one else’s if I don’t have insurance. As a person with diabetes, whose life depends on being able to have supplies, it makes me feel like my life doesn’t matter. The lives of all the people who are suffering and struggling to get their medical needs met don’t matter either. It makes me hate society. It makes me furious at America. It makes me despise diabetes. It makes me feel completely powerless and utterly hopeless. It makes me feel like my life is of no value because I’m not rich enough or employed enough or employed by the right company. It makes me wish they’d never discovered insulin because it would be easier to know a disease was going to kill me within a few weeks, than to always be wondering if I’ll have enough money to live another day. It makes me sit in my chair and weep because it isn’t fair, but then, my mom was always quick to tell me that life just isn’t fair.

I’m generally fairly judicious about revealing my cynicism. I have a lot of it, and around those who know me best, I have smart-ass, droll comments aplenty. Over the last 8 years, that cynicism has served me well living under a presidential administration that actually made me feel ashamed of being American, as unwilling a participant as I was in how this came to be. I’m embarrassed to openly admit that because I know there are people who have, who are, who would give their lives to live here. However, it’s been heartbreaking and painful to live under an administration whose policies go against almost everything that I value, and to feel so powerless to do anything about it has been an experience in hopelessness and anger.

It wasn’t just the administration though. It wasn’t their votes that got them elected. It was a country who chose them that made me feel like I couldn’t understand the very people I live amongst. In classic cynical Lee Ann fashion, I’ve joked for several years that I should just pick up and move to Canada because this didn’t feel like a place I belonged, a place rotting in a swamp of hate and intolerance, where too many people thought nothing of judging people by their skin color or their religious beliefs. This sure as hell wasn’t the America I learned about in Social Studies class once upon a time.

Then this black dude threw his hat into the Democratic presidential race, and as much I would have loved to believe America would elect a black man, I had to scoff at the improbability of it. I’m from East Texas originally. I remember my mom, who’s only in her mid-50’s, telling me about how the schools in our hometown were desegregated when she was a teenager – only about 40 years ago. As I suggested yesterday, my biological father’s side of the family are classic Southern Republicans, as close-minded as it gets. I grew up hearing them say disparaging things about blacks, and the reigning doctrine was ‘mind your elders’ so I couldn’t even openly question it. I heard my step-mother’s nieces and nephews, kids younger than me, talk like that too. Everyone and anyone who wasn’t like them was somehow ‘less than’.

Knowing that level of intolerance first-hand, and that belief that people who are different don’t deserve the same rights, is alive and well, I never, NEVER thought I’d live to see a black president because I thought too much of America was too much like that side of my family. After having lost all my faith that our government could represent us, the regular people, and never having faith that people could look beyond a person’s skin color, tonight as I listened to Obama’s speech, I had tears in my eyes and I understood what he meant when he said, “Yes, we can.”

I had forgotten what hope feels like, and it feels damn good.

President Obama