I'm proud of us today.

**** For those readers out there who'd rather not read about politics, move on and read elsewhere. But I'm taking a different tack today. ****

From everything I've read on my usual political news sites and blogs this morning, Barack Obama is set to reach the designated number of delegates he needs to earn the Democratic nomination either today or tomorrow.

This blog is entitled "The Life and Times of Maia G," and it's generally very self-absorbed on our part ("us" being the Family G, the three of us). That's the point of it, after all, and I make no apologies.

But today, I feel like circumstances call for something else. I'm feeling immensely proud today. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling like maybe, just maybe, the country that Maia grows up in might have undergone some significant, seismic changes from the one that I've known. Perhaps there are readers out there who don't agree, or don't care. Well, then, you can know for sure that I'll be volunteering this summer and fall, calling my neighbors across the state and leaving leaflets in their doors, and my efforts will compensate for your efforts on the other side, or for your indifference.

Maia will be coming with me on many of these outings, I'm sure, and so it's possible that one of her first memories might be of a rally, or a conversation on a stranger's doorstep, or a parade down a city street. The thought of this makes me quietly happy and hopeful.

Perhaps the results in November won't come out as I hope. I'm used to that, and I can get through another heartbreaking election night. But, until then, I'm going to feel proud and energized and dedicated and hopeful, and if there are enough people out there who are feeling things like this today, maybe our efforts over the next few months will be just the preventative medicine we need to fight off another heartbreak.

(Gingerly stepping off my soapbox and ducking the rotten tomatoes . . .)