(I have had this idea for a while and want to start writing some of this down. Since I am unwilling to buy an MS office subscription when all I want is a one time cost for a one user license, like it used to be, I am just going to write things down on here. I don't really use this blogger account like I thought I would anyway.)
Its dehumanizing, the job of President of the United States. No one really cares about the things that make a person a person when that person is the President. During the campaigns my competitors distill me down to about 5 or 6 things they think will play well with their base and my election team does the same, sometimes on the same 5 or 6 things. This has happened to me no less than five times and each time it feels hollowing to hear your self described as just 5 or 6 things.
Gay
Environmentalist
Liberal
Engineer
Socialist
Weak On Crime (Opponents always claimed this but the data from The city of Kalamazoo, State Of Michigan, and Federal Department of Justice don't support that conclusion.)
I recently saw something about me, as the history books are adding me in, where it gets cut down to 3 or 4 "important" qualities of the leader. Apparently all I am was a gay, pragmatic engineer.
If I hadn't been the first openly gay President of the United States it would probably still be included but when you look back at my career in political leadership my sexuality isn't relevant. It is more than a little frustrating to see myself being remembered for that in fact. It feels like taking something minor that was not the point of my time in leadership and turning it in an important fact about me. Like if one of the top three things we choose to remember about George Washington was that he had wooden teeth. In the same way that Washington's wooden teeth are a fun trivia fact but not relevant to his leadership I feel my sexuality is not relevant to my leadership, not that I want my husband to be remembered like a cute anecdotal story about wooden dentures.
Of course now that I have been out of office for sometime and kept myself so busy as to let others write biography's about me. I have now lost control of my own narrative, but I do want everyone to know there was a complex person behind the desk. Even though the day to day of being in political leadership is chaotic I always kept the things that made me, me.
I have always been able to find the constellation Orion in the night sky. It starts to peak in to the early night sky around my birthday but isn't really visible until late fall. I always remembered how there is an entire universe near by in the night sky that the Milky Way Galaxy is slowly colliding with. Our sun will be burned up. Our planet will have been swallowed by the sun as it becomes a red giant. All of this will happen before these two galaxies collide.
It reminds me that everything is always in motion and I can't do anything about it. However, the small things that I can do something about add up to my life. The small things that we all do everyday lead to a future where we might be able to do something about the big things. There is a lot of power and hope in thinking this way
That is why I love to stay abreast of research in astrophysics and particle physics. To me it is incredibly hopeful to know that theory can create mathematical models that support the idea of amazing things, like traveling the multiverse, might be possible.
I also appreciate the fact that these concepts put a lot of people, including myself at considerable unease. If there is a multiverse and we can learn how to travel between those universes than what does that say about purpose, about God. I wish someday we could have a Ph D. philosopher that also had a Nobel Prize in astrophysics that could write that book, but we are still a long way from that.
I love my birthday. Its the end of summer so the weather is still nice. Some years my birthday falls on one weekend and then the next weekend is Labor Day, it feels like an entire week long celebration when that happens.
I didn't just have dogs because as President that is something that you do. I loved those dogs. If there was ever a job that required moments of levity it is being President of the United States. It could be a high stakes phone call with a foreign leader but the dog isn't impressed. If he wants you scratch his butt he going to come over and let you know. Those two dogs, one sheep doodle and one golden doodle, were the best dogs. Those dogs and Aaron were what got me through 8 years in the White House. The love and strength of 3 dedicated partners made everything else manageable.
Aaron was my soulmate, as of this writing he has been past for 4 years, and our dogs were our kids. It wasn't covered in the news since I was out of office when it happened but Wookie died at the age of 15, about 4 years after I was out of office and Lebowski was never the same after Wookie died so Lebowski was around for only 9 months longer. It was devastating to watch a happy health dog decline over 9 months after losing his best friend. Aaron and I talked about not getting another dog for while but having dogs is also what kept us happy and healthy together so that didn't last long before we got Henderson. If you saw my speech at the Democratic National Convention in St. Louis that was Henderson on stage with me.
If there is one thing above all else that I hope I will be remembered for, I was an environmental President. It is true that at time the environmental movement didn't like me but I was also a pragmatist so that was just going to happen. By my belief in environmental stewardship was foundational to my personality. It goes all the way to being a young boy and hearing about how I can help save the world. What kid doesn't dream about being a super hero and then it just so happened that I grew up hearing about how I could be a super hero for the planet.
It all started in elementary school and a book I had bought. The Scholastic Book Fair was this week long event where the Scholastic Book company was allowed to turn the public school library into a book store. I saw this book, the title sounded amazing, it sounded empowering, it sounded fun, and I had to buy it. "50 Things Kids Can Do To Save The World"
American Pride: Part 2, Go Planet!