#10yearchallenge: Obama’s Inauguration
January 20, 2009, Washington, DC — I stood shivering in two winter coats for hours, alone but not truly, as thousands gathered to watch the first inauguration of President Barack Obama. It’d been an epic journey to get to that point, for all of us. Waking at 3:00 am, almost dying on the Metro when the train sped away and my feet were neither on the platform or the car—too many people and not enough room for another body, a friend’s brother held me while yelling to make room. Hours of lines and crowds and security, frigid temperatures, some complaints but nothing in comparison to what it took Obama to get there. Centuries of sacrifice were finally paying off and I was there to witness it. Having voted in my first election and begged my representatives for tickets hours after he won, I was there to see it—a moment where the world changed for the better.
In many ways, the inauguration marked the beginning of adulthood for me. Just months before my 20th birthday, everything of import seemed to happen in 2009 as I galloped into my twenties without any idea of how little I knew. In the months to follow that glorious day, I’d have my first real break up and say good bye to my first love. I’d live alone for the first time. I’d study abroad in a country where I didn’t speak the language and manage to get around on my own (privet, Russia). I’d somehow convince my classmates I was mature enough to lead them on a service trip to South America. I’d get drunk and smoke pot (kind of) for the first time. A friend would die suddenly. New loves would come along and I’d learn just how complicated love (and lust) could be.
So many things happened and yet it was the before of so many others. Swine flu hit the world and I was quarantined in multiple countries without ever getting sick. Michael Jackson died. Amy Winehouse was still alive, I remember because it seemed appropriate to dressed up as her for Halloween. I learned about Lululemon and Angry Birds and sustainability for the first time. I did not have an iPhone, most people didn’t. I started my first blog. I still ate meat and drank vodka, both have long since fallen by the wayside. Instagram did not exist. Twitter did, but it wasn’t a thing. Blockbuster was still alive, but dying—I remember going to a fire sale, excited to buy DVDs. Now trendy neighborhoods in San Francisco were still up-and-coming, studios could be found for under a grand.
How could I imagine what was to come? How could any of us? Anyone could have told me that’d my twenties would be rough, they probably did and I ignored them. But what was to come politically? No one was thinking Donald Trump. How absurd. If someone had come on stage at the end of that cold January day in 2009 and said, “Donald Trump will be the next person to stand here and be sworn in as President,” we would have laughed in their face, or worse. A Donald Trump presidency was incomprehensible at that moment. Even now, if it weren’t real, it’d be too far-fetched to warrant a fictional story. And yet here we are.
As I think back, I’m sure someone told me my twenties would be hard and I definitely ignored them. Twenty is that forgotten birthday between 18 and 21 that means very little, only signaling further excitement to come. But thirty? A whole sub-genre of self-help literature exists around that birthday. My father says my mother cried. On days I’m feeling particularly bitter I think, “but at least she were already married!” I’m almost thirty and alone. And unemployed; another thing they don’t tell you when you’re twenty and still in college—a career in the arts (even if you have a Masters) is impossible. Actually they did say that, but I was almost twenty and ignored them.
Years passed dizzyingly fast and so too came the good and bad of Obama’s presidency: the first year or so when we worried he’d be a one-term president, the never-ending wars in the middle east, the Affordable Care Act, Bin Laden, the slow improvement of the economy. I watched as I struggled through my twenties—thankful when Obamacare was there to save my life, happily surprised when results were called early the night of the re-election, but mostly Obama was the one thing I could count on in my twenties, a reminder that no matter what happened at least we elected him into office.
During a recent “I’m almost thirty” freak out, I realized my twenties sucked; they do for most people. College does little to prepare us for the real world. Even if my thirties don’t get any easier at least I’ll be used to the uncertainty, the letdown, and the confusion. Why am I worrying? Because society and pop culture tell me too. But my thirties will be better. A lot of my firsts are finally over. I can’t be sexually assaulted again for the first time. I won’t be diagnosed with anorexia or sent to treatment for the first time derailing the plan I’d had since high school. I’ve already been put on antidepressants and taken a job I hated just to get health insurance. I’ve asked the man I thought I was going to marry to move out. I’ve stood at friends’ weddings feelingly utterly alone and I’ve lost a family member I truly loved. I’ve already realized the profession of my dreams is probably not going to work out and I still have no idea what I want to do with my life. I know other firsts will come but at least I have these shitty ones (mostly) under control.
Ten years ago, an underdog took the White House from whom many considered to be the worst president of our time. It won’t be easy to do it again, but at least we’ll know we’ve done it before.