Change

“I believe in America.”

The opening words of “The Godfather” capture best what I feel today.

I choose this day to start publishing my blog because no other day have I felt so inspired. I have been thinking and wanting to write for quite a while now as this year has been a very special and different one for me. But it is on this day that I find the greatest inspiration to begin recounting the tales of the past months.

Change is what I needed and on dec. 4th of last year I embarked on a journey that I knew was going to be extraordinary without possibly imagining the outcome. Around that same time Barack Obama was speaking to people about change and his vision for a better America in the first stages of the presidential primaries.

Ever since he announced his run for the presidency, I have firmly believed and never doubted he would be our next president. He stole the show at the 2004 democratic national convention and sparked my hopes for something great to happen in this country. At that time of course I was hoping for a different outcome and when John Kerry lost I began losing hope again. Four years prior to that we’d seen a very divided America elect George W. Bush after a process that made me realize that with all its promises, this country isn’t the democracy it claims to be. How a candidate can win more votes than his opponent and still lose blows my mind. The electoral college system needs to be revised. It isn’t fair and I don’t understand how we went through this very controversial 2000 election and didn’t think to ourselves: “lets make some changes.”

On this day I can finally say my hopes are back and I am excited to start believing in this country again. What a good feeling. Because I do love this place so much for so many reasons, but have been so discouraged and frustrated over the years that I caught myself being angry more than anything else. I have spent this past year in many different countries and have heard many bad things about the US. Often times I didn’t feel safe saying I was American and found myself pretending to be from Canada... What a shame. I want to be proud of the passport I carry. And now I can be again as the world now knows that we Americans are ready to head into a new direction and get back on track.

Ironically I spent this election day in Wyoming, a hardcore republican state. I wore my Obama t-shirt proudly even though the dry cold forced me to put some layers over it... The minute CNN was announcing Obama as the president elect on the radio, I was entering a coal mine where I was taken on a night tour and showed the very impressive heavy machinery and coal mining process. I even got to drive a 240 ton capacity 2700 horsepower haul truck! And I thought I was the man when I drove a 600 hp Lamborghini a few years back...

I would’ve preferred being in Chicago or on Times Square of course, but at the same time it was quite an experience to feel completely isolated from the world in a science-fiction setting watching people working as if it was just another day, reminding me that although we have many reasons to celebrate, we also need to keep working hard towards better days.