the meaning of life is: do the next thing
Nov. 9th, 2016 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardThat's what I've been repeating to myself all day. I don't know what book I got it from anymore -- I know I got it from a book -- but it's what I always come back to when I'm reacting to something. Do the next thing.
I've been crying on and off all day -- I was mostly numb last night. I live on the West Coast, so I was doing the time zone conversions in my head, reminding myself that the West Coast (the Left Coast, as my Republican father likes to call it) always goes blue. Watching. Waiting. Food Network on the TV, Twitter on my computer. No news channels. I went to the store yesterday to buy booze, figuring one way or another I'd be crying into it. (Bad idea. I don't like alcohol and I don't react well to it, so, well, now I have this bottle of rum I need to do something with.) We canceled our newspaper subscription recently, and I was making plans to go to the store this morning so I could get a copy of the paper with the first woman president on the cover.
No.
I think -- probably like a lot of people -- I've spent a lot of time going back through everything I could have and didn't do, because that's the way my brain works. I didn't canvas, I didn't phone bank -- but I live in a very blue state and a very red county. Washington went blue. (Kittitas County went red.) I can barely keep my own life together, and for me, that wasn't really an option. When my dad was here, I didn't even want to go over to the Democrat stand at the farmer's market, because I didn't want to touch off an argument about politics. But I voted.
And the thing is -- that's actually not something I've done the past few years. I voted in 2008, but I didn't vote in 2012 (I was abroad, not that that's an excuse), and I haven't voted in state and local elections for a few years. I stopped getting ballots in the mail. But this year I got up and I checked my registration status (I forget the technical term, but while I was still registered I hadn't voted in so long the state was basically like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and stopped sending me ballots; for WA that was an easy fix) and filed for an absentee ballot for the primary. I was still in Louisiana then, and while I was sitting there at my computer googling every name and measure downticket, I kept thinking "I don't know anything about what's going on in Washington, I know a lot more about Louisiana politics." (Still true, by the way.) But I'm registered to vote in Washington, not Louisiana, and I looked them all up and voted downticket in the primary. Because I wanted to do something, and sometimes -- all you can do is vote. Show up and speak out. And -- I wanted to vote for a woman. I wanted to vote for Hillary Clinton, something I had never done before. (In 2008 I was a Republican, so, like, things change. People change!)
My county is mail-only and has been for as long as I've been voting and as long as I can remember. I've never seen an actual polling station. I got my ballot in the mail two weeks ago and I looked up all the state and local names and everything up for a vote, and I filled in the little box next to Hillary Clinton's name. I got to vote for a woman for president of the United States.
And that's huge. That's so, so huge.
(And I don't know if I ever will again now. I hope so. But I don't know.)
And I keep thinking -- is there anything else I could have done? Yeah, maybe. Maybe not. But Washington went blue. There's nothing I could have done to change the outcome in my state, because my state already voted the way I voted. (By a LOT.) But I voted, and because for whatever reason (laziness, mostly) I didn't do so in the past few elections, that's huge for me on a personal level. And I keep reminding myself of that.
I'm sad. I'm angry. I'm scared.
I'm glad both my parents are out of the country, because I wouldn't have been able to deal with my father right now and I'm pretty sure my mother wouldn't understand why I'm so upset.
I'm tired.
I'm glad that the U.S. government was basically organized around the principle "we don't trust anyone else in the government."
I'm proud of the people and measures that I got to help vote in. I'm proud of Washington State. I'm proud that I remembered to fix my registration and send in my ballot.
I'm grateful that I got to vote for a woman to be president of the United States, and I'm proud of her.
But gods, I'm tired. And sad. And I wish she had won.
So many of the reactions I've seen have been "get up and fight," and I'll get there. Somehow, some way, even if it's just by voting. But right now I'm tired. And the meaning of life is: do the next thing.
I've been crying on and off all day -- I was mostly numb last night. I live on the West Coast, so I was doing the time zone conversions in my head, reminding myself that the West Coast (the Left Coast, as my Republican father likes to call it) always goes blue. Watching. Waiting. Food Network on the TV, Twitter on my computer. No news channels. I went to the store yesterday to buy booze, figuring one way or another I'd be crying into it. (Bad idea. I don't like alcohol and I don't react well to it, so, well, now I have this bottle of rum I need to do something with.) We canceled our newspaper subscription recently, and I was making plans to go to the store this morning so I could get a copy of the paper with the first woman president on the cover.
No.
I think -- probably like a lot of people -- I've spent a lot of time going back through everything I could have and didn't do, because that's the way my brain works. I didn't canvas, I didn't phone bank -- but I live in a very blue state and a very red county. Washington went blue. (Kittitas County went red.) I can barely keep my own life together, and for me, that wasn't really an option. When my dad was here, I didn't even want to go over to the Democrat stand at the farmer's market, because I didn't want to touch off an argument about politics. But I voted.
And the thing is -- that's actually not something I've done the past few years. I voted in 2008, but I didn't vote in 2012 (I was abroad, not that that's an excuse), and I haven't voted in state and local elections for a few years. I stopped getting ballots in the mail. But this year I got up and I checked my registration status (I forget the technical term, but while I was still registered I hadn't voted in so long the state was basically like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and stopped sending me ballots; for WA that was an easy fix) and filed for an absentee ballot for the primary. I was still in Louisiana then, and while I was sitting there at my computer googling every name and measure downticket, I kept thinking "I don't know anything about what's going on in Washington, I know a lot more about Louisiana politics." (Still true, by the way.) But I'm registered to vote in Washington, not Louisiana, and I looked them all up and voted downticket in the primary. Because I wanted to do something, and sometimes -- all you can do is vote. Show up and speak out. And -- I wanted to vote for a woman. I wanted to vote for Hillary Clinton, something I had never done before. (In 2008 I was a Republican, so, like, things change. People change!)
My county is mail-only and has been for as long as I've been voting and as long as I can remember. I've never seen an actual polling station. I got my ballot in the mail two weeks ago and I looked up all the state and local names and everything up for a vote, and I filled in the little box next to Hillary Clinton's name. I got to vote for a woman for president of the United States.
And that's huge. That's so, so huge.
(And I don't know if I ever will again now. I hope so. But I don't know.)
And I keep thinking -- is there anything else I could have done? Yeah, maybe. Maybe not. But Washington went blue. There's nothing I could have done to change the outcome in my state, because my state already voted the way I voted. (By a LOT.) But I voted, and because for whatever reason (laziness, mostly) I didn't do so in the past few elections, that's huge for me on a personal level. And I keep reminding myself of that.
I'm sad. I'm angry. I'm scared.
I'm glad both my parents are out of the country, because I wouldn't have been able to deal with my father right now and I'm pretty sure my mother wouldn't understand why I'm so upset.
I'm tired.
I'm glad that the U.S. government was basically organized around the principle "we don't trust anyone else in the government."
I'm proud of the people and measures that I got to help vote in. I'm proud of Washington State. I'm proud that I remembered to fix my registration and send in my ballot.
I'm grateful that I got to vote for a woman to be president of the United States, and I'm proud of her.
But gods, I'm tired. And sad. And I wish she had won.
So many of the reactions I've seen have been "get up and fight," and I'll get there. Somehow, some way, even if it's just by voting. But right now I'm tired. And the meaning of life is: do the next thing.