Get Out There!

“Red Lips” is a free sharable graphic by Lisa Congdon for ImVoting.com

Tomorrow is election day. If you’re an American, you probably know this. And surely, I’d assume, you don’t need me to tell you to go out there and vote, but I’m going to do it anyway a) because I don’t want to wake up on Wednesday knowing I didn’t do this one small thing to help spread the word and encourage my fellow citizens to action and b) because my mother might actually murder me if I didn’t do this one small thing to help spread the word and encourage my fellow citizens to action.

Here’s the deal. There are so many issues I could get into, each one deserving of way more discussion than I can reasonably commit to giving on my blog that’s primarily about home renovation. If you’ve read this blog for any amount of time, or have any powers of deduction to speak of (hi! I’m a New-York-Gay-Jew-Millenial! Nice to meet you, too.), I’m sure you know where I stand on the direction of this country and our past two years of leadership.

To be honest, I’m not !FIRED UP! this time. I remember being !FIRED UP! for past elections. I wish I was, but I’m not, and that’s not how I’m supposed to be feeling, and that failure to feel correctly makes me feel worse. We should be JAZZED, right? Because there IS a lot at stake. Because the outcomes WILL be consequential. Because some of us have been waiting to cast this ballot since November 9, 2016, and the day is finally arriving. Yet…I’m not excited. And maybe I’m not the only one who hasn’t managed to muster the correct feelings for the occasion. I think this is what it is:

I’m angry. I’m anxious. I’m scared. And I’m tired—of day after day seeing/hearing/reading about a new or growing atrocity in my country. I was kind of prepared for the deluge of Bad Stuff I Don’t Like At All—when someone tells you who they are, BELIEVE THEM. All the warnings we needed have always been right there. The part I wasn’t prepared for was my response to the Bad Stuff I Don’t Like At All. I’m pretty sure I’m a person who cares about stuff, sometimes perhaps too deeply, and yet I’ve felt myself becoming numb. I see myself caring less. I never thought I’d watch myself feel so little when confronted with so much: seeing migrant children in concentration camps on American soil, mass shootings, the intentional acceleration of environmental destruction, constant attacks on the free press, attacks on the LGBTQ community, attacks on women and people of color, on our elections, on religious minorities, on common decency and some semblance of mutual respect, just to name a few that come to mind. To feel it all is too much, and so my brain has replaced outrage and devastation for this uncomfortable-comfortable numbness. Because I still need to kind of function like a normal person. Because I still need to wake up in the morning and go about my day and do the things I need to do.

It freaks me out that I’ve learned to care less. That I’ve learned in short order how to put my principles in a box that I can only open when I have time. It freaks me out how quickly learned helplessness takes hold, and that maybe that’s exactly the strategy at work here and maybe it’s working exactly as intended. On me.

I don’t have answers here. It sucks. Maybe it’ll suck less soon. Maybe it’ll suck more, or a lot more. But I know one response that’s absolutely not an answer: not voting. Our hands might feel tied in a great many ways. Our hearts might feel broken and our faith in the system might feel shaken and the whole endeavor might feel pointless. Those are all valid ways to feel. But far from perfect as it may be, it’s all we’ve got. And it only works—or even kind of works—if those who are capable of showing up and doing it, in fact, show up and do it.

So please show up and do it. Don’t expect things to work themselves out. Don’t expect everyone else to take care of it. This is the moment—use it. I’m including some helpful links below to help you out.

To check your voter registration status, click here!

To find your polling location and hours, click here!

To see exactly what will be on your ballot, BallotReady.org is a great place to start! There’s actually more on the ballot this election than I even realized—I know what I’m doing for the House/Senate races, but I’m glad I took a closer look at the state, local, and judicial candidates, as well a ballot measure for my county! Down-ballot races are just as important if not more than the big national ones.

Get Out There! published first on manhattan-nest.com