Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Sixteen Years Gone
Sixteen years.
If I had been born 16 years ago, I'd be getting my driver's licence today, so this would be a purely happy day.
But today is not my 16th birthday. Today is provincial Election Day where I live and my feelings are much more mixed.
Eighteen years ago, I was what they call a Young Turk. I was a young political professional appointed to a high-ranking job fresh out of college. Sharp, energetic and ambitious, I felt (within the context of my little jurisdiction) like a Master of the Universe, as Tom Wolfe put it.
I had a boss, a cabinet minister, who I liked and who indulged my advice. There were grown men and women, much older, wiser and better educated than I was, who felt obliged to suck up to me. I had money, power and all the perks.
I had too much, really, more than I'd earned. Finally, 16 years ago, the mighty hand of The Vote came and took it all away.
When a young politico faces his first major defeat, there are basically two ways he can go. Many choose to see their party's election loss as a wake-up call to get on with their "real lives." They go back to get their law degrees and MBAs or get into one of those suitably mature, bourgeois professions like real estate, insurance sales or financial management. These are the smart people.
But then there are those other poor damned souls who become addicted to political life and decide to stick with it when their party is in opposition, ever pursuing the elusive dream of returning to power.
I chose the latter path. In my partisan arrogance, I figured our opponents could not possibly last in government more than four years. I figured I would still be pretty young and I'd soon be right back into being a Master of the Universe before I knew it.
That was 16 years ago. The first eight our opponents earned. The second eight we handed them through our own sheer stupidity.
Those 16 years of my professional life have been filled with frustrations, heartbreaks, sacrifices and betrayals too numerous to recount.
And good times. Yes, some good times, I must admit. But was it worth it? No, probably not. Finally, I did succumb to the "get a real job" path; I should have done so long ago.
Sitting here, on the verge of a major political change in our province, I find myself as much as anything consumed by sympathy for our opponents. They've grown increasingly desperate as they've come to grips with their imminent loss. I've been there, I know what that feels like. I know many of them personally; good guys, with families to raise and mortgages to pay. They're all pretty freaked out right now. After 16 years, I'm sure many of them figured the party would never end and therefore have no back-up plans. Quite literally, I don't wish that on my worst enemy.
As for me, over time my glorious, romantic dream of the Masters of the Universe faded as slowly but certainly as my hairline. In its place grew a new self-image, that of the heroic Resistance Fighter.
But what happens to the Resistance Fighter when and if he finally wins, when all of his great battles are finally over? What happens to the old soldier to whom peace and victory have become foreign concepts?
I'm about to find out. I don't think I'm going to like it.
[Next post will be back to happy stuff, I swear]
Leonard Cohen - The Partisan
posted by Mentok @ 7:56 a.m.,
4 Comments:
-
At 9:23 a.m.,
Grumps said...
-
I was like you, Mentok, only I was out of politics after just eight years and even though my party was re-elected.
Turns out, it was one of the best thing that could ever have happened. I'm healthier, happier and more secure professionally than I would have been had I stayed in the game.
And I'm living in Grumpsland, not Mentokville. Ha! -
At 10:18 a.m.,
Mentok said...
-
Oh yes I remember that time all too well. Pardon me, but I really must tell the story about how you were informed of your dismissal:
Grumps' former office had to downsize, so they played this enormously cruel game of musical sticky notes. They'd put your name on a sticky note and attach it to an office door. Every day, they'd rethink who they were assigning where, so you had to go in every day during the transition period to check to see if your sticky note was still on some door somewhere.
Then finally you come in one day and you can't find your sticky note. And that's how you know...
Isn't that just the milk of human kindness? ;-) -
At 1:32 p.m.,
Grumps said...
-
Mentok - that must have been someone else. After working 14 hour days for 30 straight days during the 95 election, I was just basically told to stay home until they made a decision. That was made about two weeks afterwards. And no one was reassigned, just laid off. Some found jobs elsewhere (on their own) but I didn't. And, frankly, am just as glad.
-
At 2:19 p.m.,
Mentok said...
-
Ooops, sorry man. So much for my boast of remembering "that time all too well". In fact, it appears I've remembered it all too poorly!
