Out of Sorts as Election Day Approaches

We voted yesterday, and it felt like the most anticlimactic voting experience of my whole voting life.  I first voted in the 1984 election; I remember filling out my absentee ballot in my dorm room, feeling thrilled.  Through the years, I've voted in polling places that were in elementary schools, community centers, churches, and other types of places.  Until 2016, I always voted on election day--I loved feeling like I was part of a process that the whole nation could be experiencing.  Even the early voting that I've done has felt special--there was always a line but that didn't prevent a festive feeling.

Yesterday, we had planned to drop off our mail-in ballots at the secure box at the polling place for early voting.  We didn't count on the rain or the flooded streets, but we have a newer car that we bought knowing how often we have to deal with flooded streets.  I had thought about bringing my camera, but because of the rain, I didn't.

I wanted to bring my camera in 2016, when I thought I was voting for our first female president of the U.S., but I knew it wouldn't be allowed.  This year, I feel our vote is even more essential--but every year I feel it's essential.  Perhaps essential isn't the word.  When we got out of the car, I said, "Let's go save the democracy."  This year, it really does feel like more is at stake.

We walked to the front of the line, and I felt a bit strange about that, even though there was lots of advertising about why we should get a mail in ballot, how much easier it would be, how we could drop it off at a polling place or at an election office.  Why did I feel slightly guilty about being able to go straight to the front?

The whole process took about as long as it took to walk from the car to the building.  I've never minded waiting in line, and the line yesterday wouldn't have been anything unusual.  But with a pandemic raging across the land, it's not a good year to wait in line.

I felt a bit out of sorts yesterday, what with the rain and my spouse's grumpiness.  I felt out of sorts all day, with a vague anxiety, vague in that I couldn't attach the source of my anxiety to anything specific, or maybe I could pinpoint all sorts of possible sources of my anxiety.

I feel out of sorts this morning too.  Perhaps I am just going to feel out of sorts until election day.  Maybe it's partly returning from a great retreat where I got things done, and I'm not feeling that way anymore.  I am missing the kind of autumn one can find in the mountains in mid October.  I am missing the kind of relaxation and purpose I feel when I'm away.  I am tired of worrying about once in a decade flooding that now comes multiple times a year, tired of worrying about an education system that is imploding even more quickly than I expected it to, tired of worrying about my health and my family's health and the health of the nation, tired, tired, tired.