Election Day

11/8/2022 

So many times I’ve thought things were going to be okay, and then they weren’t. My dad had that heart attack and the kid who was MB back then told herself to not overthink the drama because things always turn out more or less okay. Then the next day he died.

We lost a pregnancy far enough along that we had a name picked out and a crib in which to put that child. For a week I had all the misery and cramps that go with miscarrying and I still thought somehow it was going to work out okay.

Waking up on a Saturday morning to NPR announcer Scott Simon saying the Columbia should land soon. Then he was quiet. Then there was confusion in his voice. Then there was fear. Not believing what we were hearing.

I was sure Michael Dukakis would win in 1984. I did not believe W Bush would actually send the military into Iraq.

I feel like this today. I can’t believe our nation might elect people who will rescind our rights to live our private lives in private. I can’t believe we would send back into official jeopardy people who are LGBTQ or trans or challenged by the myriad of things which can imperil or inconvenience our human lives. I can’t believe people will vote in tax cuts for the rich and vote out women and men who work to defend the environment from even more climate crisis. I can’t believe we will embrace racism and call it patriotism.

I’m sure you are in about the same place I am. What will happen? When will we know? Will Trump and supporters call into question every election they don’t win? Will it get crazier than it already is?

I don’t know.

I was a volunteer in the 1972 election between Nixon and McGovern. I was 19 that autumn; not even old enough to vote but I knocked on doors and made phone calls in DuPage County, the second most Republican County in the nation. I contacted a hundred people and I still remember the woman who laughed at me and said, “Bless you, Dear, for trying.”  

My father died. I became who I became. Almost three years after we lost that baby, our excellent third kid was born. NASA still exists and the James Webb telescope is sending back photos beyond our wildest human dreams. Obama won two elections. I don’t know even one family that doesn’t have within their loved ones persons who are LGBTQ or have some other of the rainbow stripes of destiny and chemistry.

Like I keep telling myself, hope is not the destination; hope is the road.

How are you today?

This is the rescue pup who belongs to our third kid.