No need to apologize. Now let's have a potluck dinner and then get to work. There's something for all of us to do

Heather Havrilesky:

Dear boomers: We're sorry for rolling our eyes at you all these years. We apologize for scoffing at your earnestness, your lack of self-deprecation, your tendency to take yourselves a little too seriously. We can go ahead and admit now that we grew tired of hearing about the '60s and the peace movement, as if you had to live through those times to understand anything at all. It's true, we didn't completely partake of your idealism and your notions about community. Frankly, it looked gray and saggy in your hands, these many decades later. Chanting "What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now!" at that rally against the Iraq War made us feel self-conscious in spite of ourselves. We felt like cliches. We wondered why someone couldn't come up with a newer, catchier, pro-peace slogan over the course of 40 years of protests. We knew we shouldn't care that some of you were wearing socks with sandals and smelled like you'd been on the bus with Wavy Gravy for the last three decades, but we cared anyway. We couldn't help it. It's just who we are.

And look, we really did stand for something, underneath all the eye-rolling. We're feminists, we care about the environment, we want to improve race relations, we volunteer. We're just low-key about it. We never wanted to do it the way you did it: So unselfconscious, so optimistic, guilelessly throwing yourself behind Team Liberal. We didn't get that. We aren't joiners. We don't like carrying signs. We tend to disagree, if only on principle.

But when we watched Barack Obama's victory speech on Tuesday night, we looked into the eyes of a real leader, and decades of cynicism about politics and grassroots movements and community melted away in a single moment. We heard the voice of a man who can inspire with his words, who's unashamed of his own intelligence, who's willing to treat the citizens of this country like smart, capable people, worthy of respect. For the first time in some of our lifetimes, we believed.

Suddenly it makes sense, what you've been trying to tell us about John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Sure, we knew all about their roles in history, we'd learned about them in a million classes, through countless books and documentaries. Eventually, though, the endless memorials and tributes and TV specials and Oliver Stone films grew a little tedious. We didn't quite understand why you've never let those two go, why you'd speak so relentlessly about a better time.

Look at how lucky you are. You got to see history made in your lifetime. Your leader has made it to the presidency, rather than being outmaneuvered by the hackocracy, or worse, murdered. We don't begrudge you that luck for one minute, because your luck is ours too, and everyone else's.

You never really believed that there were many of us who have been out here for the last thirty years still fighting the good fight. Even after we showed up alongside you in 2002 to fight tooth and nail against the impending and inevitable Iraq War, you never quite believed it. Maybe now you do. Maybe now that we've walked neighborhoods with you handing out leaflets and convincing voters that change doesn't happen with a guy who's been the current administration's BFF for eight years that we never really left. Oh, some of us did, but those were the YAF kids, the ones who had "Love it or leave it" bumper stickers on their Chevy Impalas. The ones who were out in the streets never really did.

But you had to find out for yourselves. And frankly, we WANTED you to find out. We WANTED you to have someone to inspire you, to make you believe. Because if you can't believe when you're young, you've missed a special part of life.

Think of the opportunity we have now. We are three generations in solidarity -- four if you count people like my mother, who rarely goes out but found herself at Democratic headquarters in her North Carolina town this year, sitting at a desk passing out buttons and bumper stickers. Five if you count my friend's 15-year-old son who just joined the Democratic Club at his high school, much to the chagrin of his Republican grandmother. We've succeeded in electing a president with the potential to turn back the nightmare of the last eight years, and now we can bury the generational hatchet. Imagine what we can all accomplish together.