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I can't really find the words to express the way it felt to wake up today and know that for the first time in a long, long time, Americans have a reason to wake up and feel hopeful about the future of our country and the world.  

I have never seen people so emotional, so excited, so passionate about the results of an election.  I remember in the first grade, when Bill Clinton got elected, watching TV and thinking it was pretty boring.  I remember being a freshman in high school when the Gore/Bush election turned into a month-long fiasco decided by the courts--even then, when the final verdict was decided, people simply accepted the decision and moved on.  I remember in 2004 being angry about the lines in Ohio, but watching the resolute acceptance and congratulations speeches by Kerry and Bush.  Last night there were more than speeches.  Last night there were more than just parties in hotel rooms where the candidates were watching.  Last night, at 11:00pm, when California's projected votes came across the TV screen and Obama was declared the winner, there were hundreds of thousands of people waiting in Chicago to celebrate.  There were horns honking outside my home in suburbia, fireworks set off across the country in neighborhoods in states traditionally conservative.  This was, clearly and concisely, a different election.  This election mattered in a way no election has in recent memory.  This was the American people's chance to take back what was theirs, to live up to our creed that all men--black or white, rich or poor, Christian or Muslim or atheist--are created equal.  That everyone has a chance.  

I have never been brought to tears by the reactions of political journalists.  Until last night.  Because now I can tell my children that only forty years after Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed because he believed he should be able to share a bus or a restaurant with a white man, we elected a black man to the highest office our nation has to offer.  But more than that--we elected a man who will (hopefully) bring America back to the standing it once had in the world as a respected power.  One who will show up in palaces and offices the world over and carry with him the message that America is once again an open, thoughtful, peaceful nation with the world's best interest at heart.  One who has brought the fire of hope back to the eyes of the country, even those at the bottommost rungs of society, that America can once again be the land of opportunity for those willing to work together for its improvement. 

I am, for the first time that I can honestly remember, exceedingly proud to be an American.  I am proud of my country, proud of its people, proud of its president, and proud of what we have been given the opportunity to be once again.  I cannot wait to see what the next four years will bring.  I am excited to practice medicine in a country where people are not denied care based on income, excited to raise children in a country that uses diplomacy before unilateral forces of strength, excited to move forward in this new atmosphere.  Here we go, world.