I've got stamina.

Every morning on the drive to school, I try to play an empowering song for the girls. Recently, due to Lucy's well-documented love of all things Sia and Maddie Ziegler, we've been listening to "The Greatest" a lot. Usually it just plays quietly in the background while we check and double-check that everyone has their snacks, folders, water bottles, and homework in their bags. But today, the lyrics really got to me and when the kids got out of the car, I started the song again at the beginning and surprised myself by crying as I listened to it several times on the way home. 

Well, running out of breath, but I
Oh, I, I got stamina
Running now, I close my eyes
But, oh, I got stamina
And oh yeah, running to the waves below
But I, I got stamina
And oh yeah, I'm running and I've just enough
I got stamina

It's no secret that I love politics. I love the theater of politics. I love the way a good politician can reinvigorate citizens' desires to make the country better. I love watching social change start small and slowly gain momentum until it has a tangible effect on people I know. I love trying to see things from different perspectives, I actually enjoyed watching every primary debate and the conventions. 

I look forward to presidential debates like other people look forward to the Super Bowl. I love the zingers, the nail biting, all of it. But last night, as I watched Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump walk out and shake hands, I noticed that my heart was beating fast in a bad way. I wasn't excited. I wasn't nervous. I was terrified. I felt nauseous, on the verge of a panic attack. My older daughter, Lucy, loves Hillary Clinton and the idea of the first woman president. She sees Hillary as competent, experienced, and the obvious choice. She was sitting next to me last night and I almost wanted to just send her to bed. I didn't want her to see someone talk to a woman she admired the way Trump was about to talk to Clinton. I didn't want to watch it either.

There was something uniquely painful about watching a prepared, poised Clinton consistently work to stay calm and professional while an irrational, red-faced man screamed lies while a male moderator sat by and said nothing. I know this kind of thing happens to some extent in most debates-- the people at home want a show and it's the job of the nominees to give it to them in return for their votes. I know Clinton signed up for this when she decided to run for president, but come on.

Toward the end of the debate, Trump responded to a question about his blatant misogyny by attempting to hit Clinton where he thought it would hurt the most, while simultaneously casting himself as the more thoughtful and compassionate of the two:  "I was going to say something extremely rough to Hillary, to her family, and I said to myself I can't do it. I just can't do it. It's inappropriate, it's not nice." She just stood there, staring straight ahead and waiting for him to finish speaking. And who hasn't been that woman?

What woman hasn't had to sit quietly and maintain composure while a blustering idiot hammered her with misogynistic comments? What woman hasn't been accused of being dramatic while an hysterical man screamed at her that he was the rational one? I don't have enough fingers to count the number of times I've been expected to take responsibility for an opinion or action of a romantic partner, damned if I stood by him and damned if I didn't. All women have been in situations where we were well-informed and well-prepared, but shouted down by an unprepared, uneducated bully able to dismiss years of hate speech and lies with the shrug of a shoulder.

Last night's debate hurt to watch because it felt so personal. Hillary Clinton was every woman who has had to work three times as hard as the men in her office in order to be considered for a promotion. She was every woman who hasn't been taken seriously because she's either too hot to have a brain or to ugly for her opinion to matter. She was every woman refusing to sink to the level of an abusive partner. She was a woman, like so many women before her, sticking her neck out because how else are things going to change? 

Hillary isn't perfect. She makes mistakes. She doesn't always tell the truth, and she is held to an infinitely higher standard than her opponent. As a nation, we compare their scandals without any sense of scale and then say we've placed them on a level playing field. But she's used to having her mistakes amplified. She's used to people calling her names. She's used to being simultaneously labeled as too weak and too brash to do her job. As a woman, she's used to all this bullshit and more. But despite Trump's best attempts, she won't be swayed. She's got stamina. 

Election Season: An Open Letter to My Ten-Year-Old Daughter

I'm writing to you because this is a very big week for our country. This is the week that Hillary Clinton becomes the first woman in history to become a major political party's nominee for President of the United States. We went to Brooklyn for two days (you have pink hair now!) and we missed the roll call vote when Hillary was officially nominated, so when we got home last night, we watched it on the big screen in our living room. I can't tell you how special it was to me to be able to sit between my daughters and watch a 102-year-old woman, born before women had the right to vote, cast Arizona's votes for woman who will hopefully be the first female president of our country. 

You don't remember a president who wasn't Barack Obama. When Obama won the 2008 election, you were a toddler, too little to go with your dad and me when we flew to DC to stand in the freezing cold with hundreds of thousands of people and watched him take the oath of office. However, if Hillary Clinton becomes the first woman president, you will remember that day. And hopefully you'll remember a little bit of last night, even though you are thankfully young enough not to realize how ground-breaking it was, even though you rolled your eyes when I asked you stay in the room and watch it with me. You probably didn't notice that I was crying. I'm pretty sure you thought I was being a little silly. 

But even though I don't think you fully understood the significance of the roll call vote, I know you understand the importance of this election. And that's why I'm writing to you about it right now and not in November when we'll know the outcome and be either ecstatic or devastated. I'm writing to let you know that while we were in Brooklyn, you "prank called" people to ask them how they felt about the convention, to ask whether or not they were "with her." I'm writing because I watched you sit outside with a group of adults last week and paint a banner that said I Condemn Anti-Black Police Violence, and then march through our new city with a poster bearing the name of one of the many people of color killed by racist police violence in 2016. I'm writing because you ask our LGBTQ friends questions about their experiences, really listen to their answers, and then incorporate those answers into the way you see the world. I'm writing because you know you're privileged as a middle-class white girl, and you use that privilege to speak truth and stand up for people who don't have the same advantages. I'm writing because you do see race. You saw that your friends in Atlanta often experienced racism. You see the difference between the way white people and people of color are treated in this country. But you don't care about race when it comes to deciding whether someone is a good person, someone you want to be around, someone worthy of love. I'm writing because I'm proud of you. 

Last night, after the roll call vote, we watched a video about mother whose children have been killed because of racist civilian or police action. Even though we had marched for an end of racist police violence last week, I don't think you fully felt the emotional weight until you heard Sandra Bland's mother talking about her love for daughter, saying, "Sandy will continue to speak through me, her mother." You were sitting next to me on the couch and I felt you wipe your face on my arm. I looked over and saw that you were silently crying as you listened to those women speak. When I asked what was wrong, you managed to whisper, "This is just so sad" before you started shaking with sobs. You sat on my lap and we watched the end of their speech before listening to a beautiful song about rising up from hardship. I was so grateful for that song because as your mother in that moment, I didn't know what to say to make you feel better. I just held you as you cried. 

What I should have said was this: You are good for this world. You don't see it right now, but the love and empathy you have for every other person on earth is a remarkable thing. I've never known another child like you, even when I was a child. I've never known a child who automatically accepts every person she meets as person worthy of dignity and respect. And I mean every single person you meet. People don't have to be like you for you to value their experiences. Every life matters to you just by virtue of being a human life. Your kindness, intelligence, and compassion are inspiring not only to me, but to everyone who has a chance to see you in action.

I know you don't think you could possibly have any impact on the mothers we saw speaking at the convention last night, and to a large extent, you're right. One of the most difficult things about growing up is realizing that sometimes bad things happen to people who don't deserve them, and no amount of praying or bargaining can ever undo the wrong that has been done. It's a lesson you learned for the first time when you were five and your uncle-- your favorite person in the world-- was killed in an accident. You felt the pain of that loss, and you watched helplessly as the rest of our family felt it, too. I know that as you watched the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, and Jordan Davis speak about losing their children, a part of you was imagining your grandmother. You know all too well that that you cannot "fix" the death of a child. But you can work to fix the circumstances that led to the deaths of those particular children.

I know you think that as a ten-year-old girl, you lack the ability to create any meaningful, positive change in this world. But I am your mother, and as your mother, I have a responsibility to you to correct you when you're wrong. The truth is that people like you-- people who operate solely out of a desire to do good and love others-- are the only people who ever change things for the better. I know it's not always easy to care as much as you do, or to feel as strongly as you feel. I know it can be crushing to want to so badly to reach through the TV screen, hold the hands of grieving mothers, and fix all their problems, erasing racism and bigotry from the earth and bringing their children back to life. I know it doesn't feel like enough that whenever given the opportunity, you choose to speak up for those whose voices have been silenced. I know it doesn't feel like enough to listen and learn from people who have experienced prejudice and hardship. But you've only been around for ten years, and you've already done so much to change this world for the better. You can't see how great you already are, and you can't see how great you're going to be. You can't see what I see. And what I saw, holding you in my lap last night as you cried for the lost lives of people you never met and looked forward to the election of the first woman president, is that you are going to do big things. 

You're already my hero, and you've only just begun.