The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Welcome to the day we’ve all been waiting for!

I hope you voted. And if you haven’t, there’s still time!! 2 whole hours still, even on the east coast. Stop reading now. Go vote! Then come back. We’ll wait.

Here in NC we’re all very excited because we’re a battleground/toss-up state for the first time in, like, ever (or at least the first time in my ever). This is represented on projection maps with a color other than blue or red. Sometimes purple. Sometimes yellow. Sometimes light blue. Sometimes pink. We’re like a bag of Skittles. Aww, precious. Also, not only are we voting for president, but we are also electing a Governor, a Senator, and a whole slew of judges. Big responsibilities here.

Anyway. We voted! Feel the power! Look at my big strong muscles!

The whole endeavor took about 2 hours, which isn’t so bad, all things being equal. We brought Zoe and Lucy with us, and the church where we vote has a playground right next to where the line was, so they got to play while we stood in the spitting rainlet making small talk with the huddled masses. Once inside, we signed in and got down to business. This meant we proceeded directly to the much anticipated Kids Voting booth, regrettably located in a small storage hallway, inches from the bathrooms. This did not impact our visit to the booth, but I can imagine the teenager manning the booth had some opinions about his circumstances. Zoe and Lucy told the guy what grade they’re in and what school they go to and the guy colored in some circles on the tops of their ballots and then handed them over.

It was all very serious.

Lucy and Zoe inspect the ballot.

Lucy and Zoe vote.

Lucy puts her ballot in the box.

Zoe puts her ballot in the box.

The girls were thrilled to finally be able to vote for some girls. O’ the indignity of voting for all men. Post-feminism indeed.

After that, Lucy accompanied me, and Zoe accompanied Bob as we voted in the grown-up booths. Sadly our ballots didn’t have pictures of all the candidates on them. But it was pretty darn thrilling to push that final button — the big blinking green one that says “CONFIRM YOUR VOTE.”

After what feels like 5 years of waiting, wondering, speculating, worrying, hypothesizing, fretting, cheering and holding your breath, the Unknown portion of the 2008 Election is coming to an end. All these months of not knowing what was going to happen have taken their toll, I believe, on the American collective consciousness. I think we’re exhausted. And depressed. And anxious. And all those things that arise from months of not knowing something. This election has been going on for so long, seemingly increased, of course, by the 24-hours-a-day of news and punditry, I think we just need to know. At the risk of sounding naive I feel that any result will be, for me, easier to deal with than all the uncertainty and anticipation we’re swimming in now.

And so my friends, I wish you all happy returns. I hope things go exactly the way you want them to. And I hope tomorrow is filled with the known. Overwhelmingly so.

xo, L