The Election

My very cynical husband informed me this year that he planned to avoid the polls, and despite my disappointment, I empathized with his position. Jake feels that we, the common voter, the simple American, have become lost amid a sea of corruption, absolute power and a loss of true democracy. And though some among us may beg to differ, the reality exists that over the course of the past 6 years, our unwanted and unwarranted dictatorship has dampened our spirits and brought upon such doubt. I, however, felt that to abandon hope would be premature, and went to the voting booth with eager hands. I was dismayed in the last two weeks of the campaigns to see the negativity and smear campaigns, but uplifted in the seeming brotherhood that so many of us suddenly possessed. I brought the kids to see Bill Clinton speak, and found myself enraptured by both his intelligence, eloquence and wit. I was again inspired to believe in a process I once considered archaic and arbitrary. I voted proud on election day, not pausing a moment to reconsider my choices, regardless of the negative ads, regardless of Jake's doubt. I stayed up as late as I could that night, fighting sleep in hopes of seeing a result. I remember 6 years ago, and again 2 years ago, the endless hours of political analyzation and debate, watching the numbers in disbelief, and then horror when Bush's opponents made their concessions. And while you can argue that midterms may not be as consequential as the presidential elections, this year felt equally as urgent and dire, to me. 400,000 people in Iraq have lost their lives. Men, women and children whose biggest wrongdoing is where their parents conceived, geographically. People who have lost all of their families, belongings and cities to devastation from outside countries, ours being the largest contributor. At home, our homeless are without much deserved and needed aid, and while people like my sister strive to fight an unwilling system, faces are getting lost in the crowd. Stem cell research lays on a back burner, when it should be brought to rapid boil immediately. Gay marriage is equated with beastiality on national TV. The constitutional rights to own your own body have come up for grabs once again, and the man who supposedly leads this free country cannot pronounce simple words, or admit his own mistakes.
I woke up on Wednesday morning, once again with pounding heart, and saw the blue spread across the US. The house, the Senate, Albany...we have won. A small battle, but a triumphant and incredibly motivating one at that.
Jake has even lost a bit of the edge on his cynicism. And that is a sign that the times are a changin