It’s been nearly a year since I have been blogging here regularly. For those of you that know me, and those just meeting me, last summer my husband and I decided to sent me off to Italy to find a country house we could live in during the summer months. We were advised to do this because I have Acute PTSD from a highly traumatic near fatal car accident 3 years ago and my doctors have all prescribed a less stress filled life as the best medicine to recovery (along with therapy). I went. Found us a home. Came back. And while showing pictures of what I found was handed a formal agreement to dissolve our marriage. The trip to Italy was a sham, a way to get me out of town so that he could reorganize his life with me not a part of it. But it gets much worse.

I watched Obama give one of the greatest speeches I have ever heard today. In a week from Hell. When we barely escaped the collapse of Wall Street while still not addressing the needs of Main Street. I watched a man stand tall and draw a line in the sand with diplomatic skills unseen in American politics in my lifetime. I watched a man stand by a friend, while making it absolutely clear that even though ‘context is everything’ some of Wright’s statements were completely unacceptable. I watched a man I want to be my President.

If you have ever painted your own house or even a single room than you know that just the act of painting can free up the mind to wander. It’s pretty therapeutic actually. While the hands stay highly focused, guided by the eyes, the mind is free to go off in whatever direction it chooses. At least that has been my experience.  To my surprise I was visited by a part of myself – a very ugly part of myself – while painting. Like a cascading waterfall – images from a past chapter of my life- a time I am not proud of came back to me like a slide show. While painting my mind had started wandering and thinking about by distain for Hillary and just like that I realized that although some of my distain for her is reality based and a reaction to her actions, much much more is that she reminds me of a me I once was and never want to be again…. a me I tried to bury and forget and in the process stopped being a whole person

Frankly, I am glad I am not Barack Obama. But if ever this country needed someone of his intellectual capacity, strategic brilliance, ability to bring people together, it will be the first day he steps into the Oval office And brothers and sisters I am here tell you, the deep shit hole Bush has left us in will require not just Obama but a team of equally brilliant people to begin to address how we, as Americans, are going to climb out this seeming insurmountable abyss and turn our country around. But there is Obama and for that reason I have hope.