Memoir on My Life

My four children, my brother, my sister, my parents, and their families and friends gathered at our house in Manhattan Beach, CA waiting for election results to come out. My first daughter, Sarah, who voted for the first time in the 2008 elections, wanted to host an election watch party to hopefully, as she put it, “witness history in the making”. My second son, Richard, worked within local political organizations to register people to vote and remain informed about the upcoming elections. My older children exhibited less energy, having quieter conversations about relationships, the economy, college football, and whether to buy barbecue wings or hot wings from the Wingstop 18 minutes away. Her and her friends buzzed with excitement as Candidate Barack Obama won pulled ahead in several states, such as Ohio.

“He’s starting to pull ahead of McCain!” Cassie screams. She’s one of Sarah’s friends from college, a Political Science and Women’s and Gender Studies double major. One of the most important issues of her remains LGBT rights, as Sarah told me Cassie identifies as bisexual. Like many students nowadays, Sarah, despite being a chemistry major, possess friends from a diverse class, gender, religion, race, sexuality, and ability backgrounds. 

Sarah stuffs two cheesy jalapeno pepper poppers  into her mouth while Grant, another one of her friends says, “Hopefully, maybe, he can win and bring some change”

Hope. Change. Words whose meaning has grown and transformed throughout my 58 years of existence.