For Now. . .

Christmas is over. We have a new president. My sister is in India. My brother is in Kuwait. Save-the-Dates and wedding invitations for the coming spring/summer have started to arrive.
All of these things are the start of a new year. I know that as the year progresses, my sister will come home, my brother will be moved to Iraq, friends and family will make life long commitments, our new president will be tested, and Christmas will come again. I know that as the days and weeks pass, events large and small will have implications for my day to day life. But today, in the warm afterglow of one of the most public and inclusive inauguration celebrations in the history of the United States, I am content.
Tomorrow I will be a bit worried and a bit scared. I have mostly been dragged into politics kicking and screaming. I do not like the frustrating task of maintaining well informed opinions on large and contentious issues. I have often wished that I were more able to ignore these issues. I have even tried. I was hopeful that having a good president who I could basically trust to at least not be a fear mongering, self righteous zealot, would allow me to go back to ignoring politics.
Tomorrow, I will think about Obama’s call to action. I will consider his position that as a citizen I am obligated not only to think about these problems but to do things that make me part of the solution. There is a large part of me that honestly wants that to go away. There is a large part of me that feels entitled to my laziness as a citizen. I did not take any oaths. I did not volunteer to tackle these big issues. Sigh.
Tomorrow I will consider how all that has changed around me should inform my actions and my decisions, and even my thinking. But for today, I am just going to focus on the happy fact that an age of deepening darkness has come to an end. We may still be living lives with little daylight, but the solstice has come, and regardless of what is to be required of us, brighter days are ahead.