8.

Dear President Obama,

It is hard to know what exactly to write to someone in a position such as yourself. You are this huge important person in the world. Over the course of your campaign I watched from afar and heard your message. Hope. Anything is possible. Change.

It’s what we all want. Change is never easy but I don’t think you can find people more eager for change then the citizens you now lead. I believe for the first time, my voice has been heard. You might not have my small American voice all the way from Germany had I not voted. I admit this was only my second time ever voting even though I’ve had the right to do so for thirteen years. I voted in the election because I finally felt that someone truly wanted to listen. And I am relieved that you are that someone who listened to my small but important voice.

I’m living as an expat family of four. My husbands employer had to remove all their operations from the US this January simply because they had so much loss of revenue the company wasn’t worth keeping. It’s a global company well represented elsewhere in the world. But what does that mean for me and my family? In one year we are going to return home to somewhere in America with no job, no company, no one place to call home. That’s such an enormously stressful thought for me and one I think about everyday. I’m reminded by all the good people I knew who worked with my husband who now no longer have jobs and with the layoffs and companies collapsing around their ears, no chance of employment without fighting tooth and nail with others who are just as deserving.

Does this make me scared to go home again? Very much so. I don’t want to wander the globe too much longer, my kids need stability and a community where we aren’t going to leave again in two or four years. But if we move back to America are we not setting ourselves up for the same thing? We were the lucky ones who left before the closure, got out before the mess. We are fortunate. But I think of my family. My sister and her three kids, her husband owns his own business. What do they do when they can no longer find anyone who wants to use their services? Where do they go? I worry about my parents, good people who served the city government for over thirty years. What do they do when they have no retirement money left? When every cent they’ve worked so hard for is gone because of this economy?

I don’t know but I certainly hope you do.

Living outside my country I hear things by reading blogs and news stories and I hear from people I know, my friends, about the hard times, lost jobs, good people who have to choose between paying their mortgage and buying food for their kids. I have the Hope that in the next year things can slowly start to move forward, gain progress towards these goals to relieve the stress of the American people. I will return home to America next year. With you as our President I hope the America I return to will be looking stronger and more like the America that I so love.

Kind regards,
Andrea White

US Citizen living in Bonn, Germany