The past eight months, and especially the last ten days, have tested me to the core. I totally engaged myself in the recent election process, beginning in early spring, then campaigning non-stop through the hottest part of summer to the intense final weeks leading up to General Election Day. Almost all of the candidates I supported won, but I did not partake wholeheartedly in the celebrations; the two closest to me, and on whose campaigns I had spent most of my time, both lost by narrow margins.

It was a huge disappointment, crushingly so to one of the candidates who will probably never run for office again and depressingly so to the other, who will lick his wounds for months to come, then eventually brace himself for another run in 2010. My own loss was much less personal than theirs. All I lost was an opportunity to claim victory and the rewards that go with it (read: “a steady income”). So it goes.

There is a tendancy to rationalize in the aftermath of defeat: The odds were against us from the start. We can take pride in having run a clean campaign. We put up a good fight. We didn’t win this time, but we made lots of friends and set the stage for future wins. We’ll get ‘em next time.

Baloney. This was not a sporting event. People’s livelihoods have been affected, including my own. Which may be why I feel a bit more compassion, perhaps, for those who worked so hard and invested so much opposing the wave of change that has washed over the country in this election cycle. Some won. Others lost. Many cheered. Others were enraged. Now, we must face the huge challenges that lie ahead. We will have to pull together to make this country, our society, whole once again.