- Share This Post
- submit
- 11
-
Sparkle (0)
When people ask me why I moved back to Upstate New York the answer is a very succinct "Because of the money". And then I shrug and say that it's just ok. When people ask me how I ended up in Washington, DC for six years, the story is longer. I don't shrug or give it a brush off, I happily go through each step starting with my early acceptance into American University and crying in the middle of Houlihan's when I was accepted.
Oh but where to begin? I guess when Hillary Clinton decided to run for the Senate from New York. I was 16 and already well versed in senatorial politics and thought that CSPAN was - and still is - far more exciting than MTV. But there was no exact feeling when she announced her intentions. Perhaps I was too young? But it slowly turned from a blase attitude about a First Lady to finally warming up to her. Then again that is how I approach any new relationship with anyone. It's a long process, with quizzical looks from my end and general suspicion.
The first time I met Hillary Clinton was a few months shy of my 17th birthday at an event in Rochester, New York. President Clinton let her enter the green room by herself so as not to overshadow her and I felt my heart begin to beat faster and my palms began to sweat as she approached me and had the audacity to ask my name. 'Heather' which is two syllables, came out in a whisper as she shook my hand and I was suddenly hooked.
She won her election easily and I was afflicted with Hillary fever. I wanted to be her. I wanted to meet her again and shake her hand and stand in awe of her because there was something - that thing that I couldn't put my finger on at the time something that both she and her husband had- about her that brought me to my knees. And so I had options of Cornell, The University of Chicago, Boston College, Syracuse. But I chose American because; and I couldn't make this up if I tried; I wanted to intern for Senator Clinton. That was my whole goal for DC ;to stare at her slack jawed and call it "work". I had big dreams, let me tell you.
Working in that Senate office was like having the business end of a chopstick shoved into my esophagus each day. I was miserable. I hated the work (I am not meant to work a Xerox machine) and because she was THE Hillary Clinton I was one of four from the Great State of New York. But I suffered through and met her when she swooped into the office and each time just stared and drooled a bit because despite my misery, it was still Her.
I'm talking about the woman like she's Jesus or something. Putting my pronouns in caps but it's the way that this woman affected me. Perhaps our kindred spirits or that we have the same birth date thus making us both completely Type A possibly obsessive women who want what we want and will try and try and try until we get it. So when I think of it now I owe every minute of the past seven years to her. To her mere presence that drove me to pursue some unknown and haphazard career in Democratic Politics. Because of one woman I met on a crappy day in Rochester - She is who I want to be.
That was eight years ago. And what has happened in that eight years for me personally and professionally, (and my God, in the world as a whole), will be fodder for decades to come. When she announced that she was running, I can tell you the exact feeling that came through me: That's it. It's her. It will be her. There wasn't a single doubt in my mind. (A brief digression to tell you about my friend Zack who at one point early on said that no one would ever vote for "some obscure black man".) She was going to be it. They might as well start fitting her for a new State of the Union pant suit today.
Their platforms weren't dissimilar, this is true. And for me and for most New Yorkers who loved our "favorite daughter" it was because we knew her. We knew how hard she
