we keep on waiting, waiting on the world to change

when I was in high school, I always thought I had been born at the wrong time. I was convinced that I would've made a great hippie, and I decided being born in 1948 or so would've been ideal. after all, the hippies were going to save the world and I certainly wanted to, too.
then I went to college. I had tons of friends that I hung out with all the time and we were all so idealistic (except for the few cynical ones). I mean, if all of us thought like this, things had nowhere to go but up, right?
little by little, I realized we were all upper-middle class kids at college. we were educated and never told that anything was out of our reach. we lived in a decent sized metropolitan area. not everyone was like that. not everyone passionately cared what happened to people across the world and not everyone agreed with us. slowly, I became more and more jaded.
after the 2004 election, I totally lost my faith. we threw an election party that night, and we had a bottle of champagne. there were probably 15 of us there, and we vowed to stay up until it was decided. after Kerry won PA, I decreed that the next state he won, we were cracking open the champagne. I fell asleep that night, cuddling a bottle of champagne, around 2am. people were leaving around then, and Jaycanna told me the saddest thing to see that night was me sleeping, still clutching the champagne that we never opened. Kerry won another state around 3:15 (Wisconsin, maybe?), but I missed it.
I woke up the next morning and was glued to the TV. when they announced that Kerry had conceded, I felt drained. I cried and called for JP and we ranted and raved against the country that had taught us we could change the world and then swept it out from under us. who were these millions of Americans? why would they think this? didn't they understand? I felt utterly betrayed. later that afternoon, I researched resident alien requirements for Canada.
I got a little hope back with this last election. I sat on the edge of my seat and danced when the democrats won the house. the next day at work, I refreshed my CNN screen at least every 2 minutes. I calculated percentages of winnings down to the thousandths. and I practically wept with joy when Rumsfeld resigned.

the other day, I heard John Mayer's 'Waiting on the World to Change'. and I listened to the lyrics. and I realized that I haven't given up hope. one line in particular caught me: "one day our generation/is gonna rule the population". I can't wait for that day. I like to think we're open minded enough to allow people to marry for love without worrying about hypocritical morals we have. and that no child will be left behind - only this time, for real. my friends won't say things like, "I can't go to the doctor. I don't have insurance." and I won't start sentences with "my friend Steph, who's being deployed to Iraq...". and even if my husband isn't a lawyer, my kid can go to college without having $100,000 worth of loans by the time they're through.

so we keep on waiting, waiting, waiting on the world to change.