"--til the lady in the pantsuit says it is"

My girl is not winning the race and it's affecting me in a truly deep way, I feel very subdued. It's hard to explain, because I'm suffering from campaign fatigue like everyone else, and wanted it to be August 6 months ago already. She was ahead then, if I had only known what I was wishing for.

So many of my hopes were pinned on her winning, and of seeing her run against McCain, and the thrill of watching her inauguration as the first woman president of my country, I lived to see it, and I voted her in, and would probably cry watching the magnificent moment of her taking the oath, with Bill holding the bible tearing up himself, like he does. It had already all played out in my heart and after 8 years of Bush Purgatorio, 2009 was going to be off to such a great start.

So, now the re-grouping. It has been a high tide of many emotions, and my wave is now a mere line of bubbles in the sand, hissing into silence. Silly me, I let myself get carried up in it, all those years of feminism in my hair was now the real world. My satisfaction was tangible. She was my highest ambition coming true, liberal values and equality taking over at last! I feel kinda lost.

Of course, Barack Obama is another great candidate, another history-making moment to be alive and witnessing, and I am proud that we've reached this point, certainly. As candidates, they weren't that far apart, and I'm not a Democratic Party zealot, I go for the person more than the affiliation. But my heart isn't in it for him, he's not my guy. I'm not sending him any of my money, I'm tired of hearing about how he never was for the war, as if anyone but Bush/Cheney had a hard-on for American soldiers and Iraqi civilians being killed. That slant may sway the kids I go to school with, but to me it sounds empty, Obama wasn't even a Senator yet and wasn't in a position to even vote on it, so shut up already about it, it sounds lame. Inexperience speaks loudly for itself. But my disappointment is making me bitter. Barring some horrific October Surprise, I'll probably be voting for him, knowing he is gathering a SWAT team of movers and shakers that Hillary would have hired, so it may all even out some.

Besides, there's all those girls and young women who now take this new threshold as the New Reality Base, and will go on from here, and that does warm my heart. Always forward, no more Disney-style Neo-con Nostalgia for a Myth that never was real for the majority of us. I hope Obama exceeds my expectations and graciously moves us ahead, and shows the Republicans how it should be done. I like all the boxing gloves I see at Hillary rallies, and I wonder if she'll try again. As all women in the trenches know, you cannot quit, you cannot wimp out, you cannot whine or make excuses or do anything to appear weak and ineffectual. There's those sneering critics just waiting for a chance to gloat that "she couldn't take the heat!" The women pundits know why she hasn't quit, and sit there with their hands folded pretending to listen to the guys go on and on about it back and forth, and don't reveal the reason. But we know why. You cannot quit, ever.