This is my first diary at caucus99 percent. Like so many others, I joined the site in response to Kos' ridiculous, laughable, pathetic gag order. Also like many others, I have always voted for Democratic candidates, but I was not heavily involved or invested in previous presidential campaigns. Yeah, I threw a few bucks to Obama, yeah, I did a smidge of GOTV canvassing in my own hometown in 2008.

But this cycle, I've gotten pretty obsessed. I sent my first donation to Bernie the day he announced, with the second one a week later. I am currently north of 30 donations and have sent more money to Bernie than all previous candidates combined.

But eventually it wasn't enough to just send money. I bought a Bernie T-shirt, started wearing a Bernie button on my coat. Started talking about him to my neighbors and people in the grocery store, posting things about him on Facebook, watching the debates with a fervor other people reserve for their favorite football team. I volunteered and worked the event when Bernie came to a nearby city, and squealed like a fangirl when the media coordinator let me stand at the podium and say a few words into the mike as a friend took a picture. What had I become? Whatever it was, it felt pretty darn good.

I canvassed a few towns over. I learned a new term, facebanking, and did it. I even managed to get myself to phonebank. I am terrified of speaking to strangers on the phone and I hate it. It is torture for me. But I made myself do it for Bernie. Because he is just that amazing, just that inspiring.

And then Bernie lost my state, lost Ohio. It felt like a sucker punch. I gave myself a few days to grieve, and then I sent him some more money. Because it wasn't over, I didn't want it to be over, and so help me God this was going all the way to Philadelphia! And then the wins started rolling in, just as Bernie's team had said they would. There was finally enough time to talk to the people of each state, to get Bernie's message out, and wouldn't you know it, he won Hawaii and Washington and Idaho and Wisconsin and Wyoming.

I want so badly for him to win. I don't want to have to hold my nose and vote for Hillary, which I'm not even sure I can do any more. But Ohio is over and done. What else can I do?

"You know, Pennsylvania's only two hours away. Why not go there and canvass?" a good friend suggested. "We can go together and see if anyone else wants to ride along." A year ago, I would have laughed at the thought I'd do any such thing. I have a toddler and it is no easy thing to get away for a day.

But there I was this morning, tooling down the Pennsylvania Turnpike with my friend and another Bernie supporter riding along with us. And we did it. A full walk list in Bellevue, and most of another list up in McCandless. On a cold, gray, miserable day, we knocked on 108 doors and had a surprisingly good response. Everyone was civil, we had a good number of Bernie supporters, and the undecideds seemed thoughtful and interested in our reasons for supporting Bernie and what we had to say.

But you know what the best part was? When someone would come to the door, we'd confirm we had the right person, and then I'd say, "Hi, I'm a volunteer for the Bernie Sanders campaign, and we drove in from Ohio this morning to talk to voters here in Pennsylvania." People were flabbergasted that we would come all that way just to stand on their doorstep and ask them if they were planning to vote in the primary. It really made an impression and may have swung some people over to Bernie. One older man who I was sure was going to tell us he was a Hillary supporter said, "Wow, you must really believe in him if you were willing to come all that way and walk around in the cold."

Yes. Yes, I do. The excitement is on our side. The passion is on our side. If enough people invest enough heart in this, Bernie will win. It's that simple.