Don't eat ice cream before bed!

Wow, it seemed like such a good idea. Chocolate fudge ribbon ice cream. I had a slight case of heartburn so, why not. Well, here's why not.

I had dreams all night of tornadoes! One of them was me running through the house looking for our youngest daughter who somehow was lost in the house. How absurd! But the panic was real. I woke up breathing heavy and weirded out. So, I go back to sleep only to dream of more tornadoes looming but this time I'm running toward my home for some odd reason. Again, woke up in a panic.

So, I share these dreams with my husband first thing while he's getting ready for work. He got kind of weird about it, slightly defensive. Which I thought was odd. He said that I must be upset or worried about something. I, of course, had to press the issue, cause that's how I am. For some strange reason, I felt compelled to defend my right to have these kind of dreams. I explained to him that I thought I dreamt these dreams because we weren't prepared for a disaster, that we had no emergency plan. So, we went through a few things, which made me feel a little better. And he seemed to accept the rationale that I gave him.

But the real reason I had these strange night adventures, I am convinced, is because I ate that ice cream right before bed. Oh, and I saw several pictures of the tornadoes that hit Oklahoma. Thanks twitter friends in OK for sharing! Glad you all are ok. But next time, I'll pass on the pics AND the ice cream.

I need a nap!

Election ramifications

Ok, I admit it. I didn't vote for Obama. I don't like his politics. I voted for McCain even though I wasn't crazy in love with him, either. He just seemed closer to where I wanted to be.

But here's the true confession: I judged everybody who voted for Obama! I know, very wrong on many levels. But, I really felt like he was not qualified for the position and that if he had taken after his mother's side of the family, he would not have gotten as far in the process as he did. Just sayin.

Now, this opinion wasn't helped by the posting of videos showing blacks just indiscriminately saying they voted for him and his policies, even though they were being tricked by the interviewer and being told McCain's views were actually Obama's views. I mean, it made me mad that people were voting based on his skin tone. To me, that was racist.

So, having formed that opinion of each and every voter (that I was sure was being racist), I was irritated every time somebody got excited about him winning. Especially if they were of color! I kept wanting to shout, "You know he's only half black, right?".

Then, came inauguration day. Still very irritated with the whole thing and all the excitement. Then, I started reading the Twitter feed of some of my followers of color. They were not only excited but exstatically happy. Huh. I mean really happy and proud. Proud. That was something I hadn't really thought about.

I thought about how proud I would have been if a woman (even Hillary) might have won. I realized I, too, would have been proud and excited about a woman (even Hillary) winning just because she was a woman. Barrier broken.

Then, the comment came through about "Now we can do anything". Wow. It was in that moment that I realized that not everybody in the world had been told since they were little, that they could be anything they wanted to be - even President of the United States. My world got a little bigger then. I realized that I had taken it for granted, all my life, that I was allowed to dream big. Not only allowed, but encouraged.

I realized that for people of color or for immigrants, that had not always been the case. Until now. Now, it was a reality. Now, somebody of color (but not immigrants) actually could become President of the United States. Now, they could dream big. Now, they were free to think outside the box.

I have many ultra-conservative friends who are convinced that now all minorities will have a sense of entitlement and that things will be horrible. Well, so far up to this point, people without hope have seemed to be the ones with the sense of entitlement. I mean if you are already on welfare, shouldn't you expect to stay on welfare and it should be there for you. If that's all you've known for a generation or two, then yeah, you do expect that level of lifestyle. (Mind you, I am referring to all colors here. We all know that welfare is color-blind.)

But now, the glass ceiling has been shattered. If I really want to go all the way to the top, I actually can.

This is what hurts my heart: That it took so long for people to realize this! That there have been generations of children whose dreams have been kept in a small shoebox limited by the past and no hope for a future. That there may have been doctors and scientists and great contributors to history that haven't been nurtured and encouraged to be all that God has intended for them to be. For this, I am sad. But for this, also I have hope now.

Hope for the future of our children's dreams. When MLK said I have a dream, why didn't everybody seize onto that dream for all those who didn't have it? I'm now quite happy that Obama won. But only for this reason alone: that he gave kids and adults of color hope and the ability to dream big. Now, let's see what they do with it.

(If I've offended you in any way, sorry. That was never my intent. I just needed to come clean about a few things. I feel better now, sorry if you don't. Leave me a comment. I'm open to criticism.)