Hope.

I’ve been in love a few times. I’ve had the fortune of having my love be reciprocated for the most part, but some of those times, I have had the misfortune of loving a brotha who wasn’t smart enough to love me back the way I wanted to be loved.

When you love someone who doesn’t really love you back, or doesn’t know how, it’s a strange feeling. As the lover, you perform to the best of your ability every day, you go above and beyond the call of duty, and you exist on hope. The hope that one day, this lover will see you for who you are, will appreciate your love, your effort, will appreciate you, will see your true value and love you back, and make your dreams come true.

Unfortunately for me, as a WOMAN, I never had that luck.

BUT – as an AMERICAN, On November 4th, I felt the euphoria of feeling WANTED. Respected, understood…VALUED. It wasn’t a personal victory, but Barack Obama’s election as the 44th president of the USA was mine nonetheless. It wasn’t just mine, either. As soon as I heard Charlie Gibson make the prediction, alongside my own whoops of joy, and my son right next to me high fiving me, I heard pots and pans clanging, windows being opened to scream, people whooping and hollering, and because I live in the hood, celebratory gunshots.

In the moments that followed, between text messages, and a tearful phonecall to my best friend, where she put an image in my head that gave me chills – little brown girls playing on the front lawn in their two strand twists and cornrows – how great is THAT! Between Sen’ari chanting “Obama – not McCain”, before McCain’s touching (I was touched) concession speech, and before Obama’s speech at the park that made rivers of tears fall down my cheeks, I watched my Harlem neighbors rejoice, felt the happiness in my own heart. As I kissed my son’s hands, I marveled at how different his life could be from mine.

The next day, I was still on a high. I get off the train at 57th Street and Broadway, and just stare out while waiting for the bus. It seemed that in the 24 hours since I had last seenthis block, the world had changed. It really had. I see an older Black lady, which is rare, because I had never seen a Black elder there before – it’s generally little old white ladies waiting, and she must have seen what was in my heart. She asked me “Isn’t today a great day?” We smiled at each other knowingly, understanding what was in each other’s heart.

Yes, it was.