"In a Winter so cold that only hope and virtue could survive"

[InvisibleTouch]

Quoting President Obama from memory, who in turn was quoting George Washington. I felt like so much of Obama's inauguration speech applied directly to me and my life. It's cold here, terribly cold, because I can't afford to turn up the heat to something approaching a comfort level, and the last 8 years have been a miasma of ongoing struggle and disheartenment. But if hope and virtue managed to survive, as they seem to have done, it's time now to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off, and assume responsibility for creating a better future.

I frittered away the prosperous Clinton years, I admit it. I could have done so much more with the opportunities available during that time, but didn't. I voted for the guy twice, liked him a lot (and Al Gore even more so!), but otherwise didn't pay all that much attention to politics. Life was good, life was easy. I allowed myself to be swept along - pursued my own pleasure, took shortcuts to avoid putting in too much work and effort, gained some good memories out of it all, but ultimately it was nothing to build a future upon.

Then of course came 2000 and the crash into nightmare. Each time I thought things couldn't get worse, Dubya & Co. proved me wrong. My world got smaller and smaller, and began to be focused simply upon surviving. I've always felt like a stranger in a strange land, a being out of another time and place, but never more so than during the last 8 years. There was always a vague sense of doom and danger hanging over everything. Made me unwilling to even want to step beyond my door, let alone take any risks or tackle big dreams.

After this November's election, I felt like I could finally breathe again for the first time in nearly a decade. What I felt that night, was relief. What I feel today, is hope and determination. The realization that it won't be easy, but that doesn't mean it's okay to give up and shut the door on the world. No great things were ever accomplished that way.

I'm flashing back to some afterechos of the Clinton years, reveling in what it's like to have the country in competent hands again - but this time, I tell myself, THIS time will be different. Both in the situation we find ourselves in, collectively, and in how I intend to move forward in my own life. First of all, times are tough now, and life is not going to turn around and suddenly be easy again. But the opportunity to make it happen has been restored, and I don't intend to let the opportunity pass me by again. Ultimately, what you work for yourself means so much more than what's simply handed to you, and I think the end result will be more solid, more inclusive. Not just for my own little life, but hopefully beyond its borders as well.

We've come to the brink of the abyss, we've stared mesmerized into its depths and dangled precariously over its edge. A last-minute reprieve has pulled us back a bit. I feel like we've been given a last chance. What we do with it, is up to us now.