Something strange is happening to me.  As I sit here watching the inauguration, I am being overcome by an emotion that I am not all that familiar with: Hope.

Normally I am a cynical person, who would rather look at all events of life with the skewed eye of a skeptic, but right now, I can’t do anything but enjoy the moment.

This moment is one that has been a long time coming. A moment many thought would never come, and one that, unfortunately, some tried to block.

It is a symbolic moment of change of perspective, change of beliefs, change of history and change of future.

While I realize that the changes that are needed for the nation are large and somewhat overwhelming, I believe that this feeling of Hope is one that can be addressed on a smaller scale.  I am using this moment as a starting point for the changes that are needed to made in my own life—of which there are many.

This hope is a stark contrast from my posting of yesterday.

I now have hope that my goals aren’t impossible to accomplish.  I have hope that things will get better.  I have hope that we, my family, can get ourselves out of the pickle we’ve gotten ourselves into.  I have hope that our future can be happy, healthy and secure.

Maybe this hope is an illusion fostered by the excitement of the day.  Maybe this hope is a short lived delusion that will fade with the media coverage.  But maybe, just maybe, I can hold on to a glimmer of it and channel my pessimistic energy into a better life for myself and family.

I guess we’ll just have to see.

But, for now, I’ll take the fact that my children are allowing me to watch this uninterrupted, and seem to intrinsically understand the importance of the moment as a sign of better times to come.