First, I want to say that I voted for and support Hillary for many reasons, from her work as a young attorney to her single-payer healthcare proposal as First Lady, from co-sponsoring the Low-Income Low Energy Act (among others) to her latest “first”. And I will do everything I can to help her become the first female President.
I am not an outwardly emotional person, and almost never cry. My husband has seen me cry, probably, twice in almost 25 years of marriage. But on the day she became the presumptive nominee, I thought about my grandmother, who was the first woman in our family who could vote. She killed herself months before I was born. I thought about my mother, who worked every day, but couldn’t get a credit card in her own name until I was a teenager. And I sobbed. Tears of unabashed joy for the first time in my life. That is the very unexpected impact Hillary’s nomination had on me. My mother is still alive (she’s the youngest one in the picture), and she has lived to see this. Hopefully, she’ll live to see the first woman president.
I live in New Zealand now. My husband laughed, and said that I didn’t get emotional when Helen Clark won. Of course, he was just teasing me and already knew why, but I explained it to him. This wasn’t Helen Clark’s first rodeo, and women have been able to vote in New Zealand since 1893.
At least when she becomes President, I’ll know that tears will be a probability. And when she wins, I don’t want to be anywhere near a camera.