smartgrrrl's guide to stuff

For the last two weeks, every now and then, I’d catch my breath. My heart would skip a beat.

Do you remember, a year ago, how downtrodden everyone was? The women I worked with couldn’t imagine either a woman or an African-American man becoming the Democratic nominee, let alone President. I think this was probably a generational thing, but still — there was no light at the end of the sewage tunnel we were in. We felt trapped, collectively, as a country.

I’m not saying things are better now. You know the score, right? You know our financial, environmental, ecological, educational, health care situations are all pretty much  . . . um, fucked. Forget how better off you were 8 years ago — I was better off 8 weeks ago, you know?

But for the last two weeks, maybe three, every now and then I’d stop and think about what was about to potentially happen. And I’m not talking about election results. I am far too superstitious to say anything about who’s going to win no matter what 538.com is saying. I’m talking about the possibility. Just the possibility was enough for me to stop, every so often, and think, “wow.”

And the idea that I would have the opportunity to participate in this possibility, well, that was enough to make me tear up a little bit as I waited in line at the polls this afternoon (three people in line in front of me! only three! the lady who signed me in said the people who got there early in the morning were waiting 2, 3, 4 hours. I chose wisely!) and even more when I got up to the old-school lever-pulling X-marks-the-choice voting booth and pulled the curtain behind me.

This is only the 5th presidential election I’ve voted in. My first was 1992. A good first voting experience, I think. Not only did I vote for the presidential candidate who won, I also got to vote in Carol Moseley Braun. Later campaign funds controversy aside, that was an exciting election to be part of. A good election with which to compare today’s, as well, as many have before me. Then, as now, this country needed someone and something dynamic. Then, as now, the election was between someone who galvanized the public and someone who repeatedly came across as someone who just didn’t get it. In 1992, I was giddy — not only was I voting for someone I believed in, not only was I voting for someone I was fairly sure would win, I was voting. I love voting. I love the old-school level-pulling X-marks-the-spot machines. (I don’t care to ever vote with a computer, frankly.)

But all that, everything I felt 16 years ago . . . all that is nothing. Nothing to what I’m feeling today.

I know there are a lot of reports of voting snafus (like from here) coming in, but honestly? This momentum? This is something else, people. I don’t think it’s stoppable. This is a phenomenon. And no matter what happens tonight, no matter what the outcome of this election, no matter what happens in the next four-year term (because it’s not all going to get better after January, you know that, right?), we have this. This is ours. This matters.

I am fired up, and I am ready to go.

Related posts:

1. How Attractive are You to Men? The Esquire Handbook for Hosts has a list of questions...