Dear Mr. Obama,

I know you're a really busy and important person, and that you won't have time to read this. That's ok--I understand. It doesn't matter if you read these words, as long as I write them.

Let me introduce myself: My name is Caitlin McKimmy. I'm a Junior in college, and, at this moment, I'm listening to my fellow students' uproarious celebration, because you just won the presidential election. I'm twenty years old, and I'm both curious and confused. I'm enormously blessed, grasping for purpose, and always in awe. I am an American.

Can I tell you something? There have been times where I've been ashamed of that last part, about being from the United States. Since I've been old enough to think critically about my country, I've almost never been proud, and often felt groundless. I cried the day we went to war with Iraq. I avert my eyes during my travels abroad, reluctant to acknowledge my home. I think politics are slowly succumbing to corruption, and sometimes I wonder if the "noble ideals upon which this great nation was founded" have been buried by the bureaucracy, or if they ever existed at all. Watching the stars and stripes of our flag dance in the wind, I've felt a sad hollowness where reverence is supposed to go.

But something happened tonight. As I sat with my friends watching your acceptance speech, a foreign and wonderful sensation arose in the pit of my stomach. I'll call it hope. Maybe even pride.

Now, I know that you're only one person, and that our country is up to its elbows in economic strife and tough choices. It's going to be hard, and things are probably going to get worse. It's just that, tonight, my peers--members of a generation typified by apathy and post-modern doubt--are celebrating with fire in their eyes. You just may be the catalyst we need to motivate, move forward, and take on the huge challenges we face.

And yes, I'm celebrating too, Mr. Obama, because tonight I realized something important: I'm too young to be cynical, and it's too soon to give up.

Thank-you, and good luck.

Caitlin McKimmy