WARNING: This is NOT a political post. Any and all comments endorsing or insulting any candidates will be removed.
We lived in Canada during the last US Presidential election and it sure was something to be fully invested in a process from which we were so physically removed. I miss that disconnection, especially as we move into tomorrow, Election Day - 2020. In the past 24 hours I have seen people publicly expecting there to be riots in response to how the election works out, I have seen people rail against those they typically pal around with, I have seen social media posts removed because everyone is functioning at 98% pressure. Pressure does strange things - it crushes structures underneath it, it makes us paranoid, it causes us to overreact/underreact. But - (this is a nod to my fellow Instant Pot people) - pressure can make food cook faster, it thaws and cooks simultaneously, it allows us to preserve food for far longer than if we let it sit on our counters, pressure can even make food more tender.
Consider this: REGARDLESS of who 'wins', roughly HALF of our nation will disapprove. I don't know how we even count that a win. I also know that the path toward healing can't depend on people we elect into office. Healing is the work of the people - us people - the ones who will either be happy or sad come Wednesday, or next week or next month. How do we do the work of healing? I don't know the answer to that in full, but I do know it's work and it's going to get more painful before it gets better. But this painful work is worth it - this painful work is what brings us back to ourselves. We've gotten distracted by all of the commercials and the fliers and the radio ads - they're telling us we can't live or work or talk together without there being a cataclysmic end, but they're wrong. Those voices are the loudest, but we are more in number and we can do better.
History has its eyes on us, friends. Our children are watching how we react to whomever gets elected in the myriad of offices up for grabs - especially our nation's leader. We have a choice to make - do we snuggle in close with those who believe like we do and swear off relationships we may have had for years just to protect our own thought processes? Do we make soothsayers out of the riot predictors and choose looting over dialogue? Do we choose to be brave and try to listen to people who think differently than we do and try to understand a different perspective? Do we choose to work through the pain of divide in an effort to build some sort of unity - however fragile it may be at first?
I know and love people whom I know are voting differently tomorrow. Frankly, that's OK. My relationships with people are not built on their political stances, my relationships are built on whether we enjoy each other's company, whether we can have soul level conversations. Good people have different opinions and it's up to us to show those running for office how to behave like grown ups - not like children who need to be sent to their rooms to think about their actions. It's time for us to be brave, to show up, to probably mess up, but to also give each other some grace. We're all tired - on a scale of 1-10, I'm tired a million. And we need a valve for some pressure to escape. Let's let it out with grace and grit instead of hate and anger. Let's allow this pressure to make us more tender - with ourselves and with each other.
