Split Emotions on Today: The Inauguration

20Jan09

Today I find myself with split emotions… which isn’t what I was expecting.

I’m unsurprised to find that I feel incredibly hopeful. Today is truly a significant day in history. It is a day that for many holds great power, and I feel incredibly lucky to have helped make it happen in whatever small part I could. It is a day that breaks barriers, lifts hopes, and kindles dreams. It is a good day today.

However, I’m also surprisingly worried.

I know $170 million dollars could have been better spent than on such a show of pomp and circumstance in DC. I know putting so much faith in a single man, rather than the collective voice of many, is a large part of what brought us to this miserable point… yet we’re leaping into another single man’s arms without reservation.

I’m worried that we as a people have built the expectations so high for this one man, that the loss of faith in government if he fails could do tremendous damage to ever reforming it in any meaningful fashion. I’m worried that some will view today as the end of a great social struggle, while others still experience it every day. I worry that after today, the majority of Americans will consider their parts done, and leave the business of the country to “someone else.”

I don’t know what this feeling is called, this combination of hope and worry…

…but I pray that half of it turns out to be unjustified.

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