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I keep promising that I will write a “normal” post but this isn’t normal, is it? Life isn’t normal and 2020 keeps delivering us a nasty, gut wrenching, surprise each day and week. But we keep going. I keep logging into the darn iPad and fussing with the zillion distance learning apps. I still occasionally ponder the Loewe puzzle (many of you are telling me to do it. But WHERE do I wear??) I am on my 15th Ravensburger actual puzzle. I worked on mine Friday night and cried about RBG.
To that: here is a post I have been putting together for some time but which I haven’t posted because I felt almost like it’d be too elementary. But why? We are inundated with so much information about how to vote, get involved, but we are also so busy with distance learning, work, etc. I told my husband that I feel like we have another baby again, dealing with the kids in the day and staying up late to make up the rest. If you’re going through this know I’m here with you. A reader (hi Z) who works at a biotech recently sent me an e-mail at 2 AM. I responded back to her half an hour later. We were both taking work “breaks.”
So on the topic of voting and getting involved: most of you may know this information but if this post helps even one person it will have been worth it. And putting it together certainly helped me clarify my own plan. Some ways we can vote, get involved, and ensure the future of our democracy:
Register to vote. And then actually vote, of course. WhenWeAllVote makes it super easy to register (and is safe and legit). I am already registered but just re-did it to make sure it is safe and real. It is! You’ll be registered to vote in whatever level elections you choose, from national to local.
And, I want to be honest about something that I am embarrassed by, in case some of you are too and kind of buried under your shame/guilt. I was not a voter for most of my life. The first time I voted in a Presidential election was four years ago. I never did before, because I’m in California and assumed my vote didn’t “count” anyway. I voted in 2016 because I wanted to say I had a part in history and in electing the first female President and obviously it did not work out that way. It was heartbreaking.
But as I get older, have children of my own, I understand so much more the importance of voting. Not just in the US election but also at our state level, county, city. A reader commented that this is where we have to get involved and I agree. I took a look at some of my own city’s recent legislation and was pretty shocked/appalled. Dear God!! And seeing some of the crazy xenophobes on my own NextDoor who ARE posting, who are voting, has only incentivized me to get more involved and become more vocal. I wrote my first letter to city council this week.
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