I’ve been a bit discouraged of late. The launch of my new domain not going as well as expected and other personal stressors have been conspiring to keep me emotionally drained as of late. I think that it why Hillary Clinton’s Democratic National Convention (DNC) speech resonated so strongly with me. I was emotionally primed for that message of hope.

Ignoring party politics, and the individual, it’s a pretty amazing moment for women. There’s something remarkable about seeing someone like you achieve something no one else like you has ever achieved before, especially when there is a systematic bias or prejudice against people like you. To be honest, that prejudice against people like you has been on of the additional stress of late. I thought I had done a good job of avoiding sexism in my life. I thought surely my little social bubble of friends and family, those people I choose to have in my life, wouldn’t have any misogynists. I was wrong. This election has brought out the worst in the voting base of both sides, and the worst in some people I thought I knew well.

So Thursday night, I was so moved watching the first ever woman accept a major national party nomination and giving a speech with hope as it’s primary tenet, that I couldn’t help but post on facebook. “I am full of hope <3". That's it, five words and an emoticon shared mere moments after the speech concluded. I expected my left leaning friends to like it and my right leaning friends to ignore it.

Then something remarkable, something that lifted my spirits more than any speech could ever have. Many of my conservative, right leaning friends also liked my status. Sure, a cynic might point out that my status might have been overly vague and those right leaning friends might not have caught the reference to the DNC. And I’m sure that’s true for some of them. Not all. I think this is an example that politics are not and do not have to be so divisive. That we can support each other, even if we don’t share the same views. It’s a reminder that the loud angry voices in the party bases are not the only voices.

I am full of hope <3

Posted in Life