This is a hopeful country, right now. Perhaps a hopeful world.

After a decade of what felt like partisan bickering for bickering’s sake, it feels to me as though we’re abruptly willing to slow down, chill out, and start looking for each other’s  good qualities again. All around me, I’m aware of people reaching out to one another, finding  areas of agreement instead of dispute, open  to working together addressing  the world’s formidable problems.

Boy howdy, does it feel good.

Of course, many credit our president-elect for the resurrection of hope in this country. I saw Senator Obama speak and would be hard-pressed to deny his combination of formidable intellect and inspirational message contributed to America’s psychological turn-around. But I think it runs deeper than that. I think when this country gets off track, there’s something in us as a people that rises up and demands that we do better.

The hope this country seems to feel right now reminds me of the hope I felt when I came in the rooms. I’d spent a pretty miserable, self-destructive couple of years getting myself into them, but once there,I knew all I had to do was  reach out, join hands with my fellow drunks, and together we could get to a much better place.

I hope hope lasts. I plan to do all I can to see that it does. Want to join me?