Here’s the thing: we Biden voters care as much about the country as you do. We get it that you really miss your daily dose of drama. Drink more coffee, go bungee jumping or hang gliding. Do something that gets the adrenaline going so you’ll feel like you did when you got to wake up each day to a new dozen tweets. If you still believe the election was stolen, I suppose there’s nowhere to go with that until you resolve it for yourself. But for those of you who figure 60 plus lawsuits and a rejection by the Trump-appointed Supreme Court is enough to accept that the vote wasn’t really rigged, and you are just angry or sad that your candidate didn’t win, how much longer do you need? Because this isn’t about you. Or us. It’s about the fact that we as a country are in crisis and can’t afford to be fighting among ourselves any longer. A house divided, remember? United we stand; divided we fall? Form a more perfect union? Those are bedrock principles upon which this country was founded. None of us gets everything we want, but in the last couple of centuries there have been years of Republican leadership and years of Democrats leading—none of which destroyed us. This won’t either. We get it that Joe and Kamala weren’t your choices; we’ve been down that road, too. We see that you’re afraid of the decisions he/they will make that will make you unhappy. But, honey, come on. The day after the election, you woke up in the same bed in the same house with the same people around you that were there the day before. You have all the same stuff you had before. Nobody took anything away from you. Day didn’t turn into night. Your individual lives didn’t change all that much. Sure you’re worried, and no one’s asking you not to be. We’re just asking you to ease up on the hate-filled rhetoric. Stop repeating the lie that socialists are going to bury you with new taxes and brown and black people are going to take away your houses, and that you won’t be able to go to church. There are no pedophiles in the oval office—just a tired, but vastly experienced, seventy-eight-year-old grandfather and a smart, mocha colored woman with a vision of how to heal the country. They earned a turn to try. It’s called an election. They won. Your guy lost. It happens. Over and over again. It will again. Maybe next time you’ll be happy. Maybe not. It’s not going to make a meaningful difference in our individual lives, so why can’t we go forth and help our neighbors, get our shots when they’re available, and do whatever it is we were doing before we were whipped into a frenzy and told we were enemies. We’re not. It’s not us and them anymore in spite of what you were told. Not a single sane person alive right now doesn’t want the country to flourish. No one prays for defeat, do they? Are you so petty that if it’s not your guy, you actually want us to fail? Because if that’s true, help me to understand how you justify that attitude. Small, ego-centric children get mad when they don’t get their way. We understand that their brains aren’t developed enough to accept that life will deal some blows and some rewards and that a mark of maturity is to be gracious about disappointments and to avoid gloating when you win. But when you’re old enough to vote? We expect that by then, you do know all those things. And that even though it’s hard, especially when you’ve been told by someone you trust that what you see with your own eyes and hear with your own ears isn’t so, you will suck it up and do what’s best for your country. What do you say?

Things I want to remember if/when this has calmed down:

1. There’s always a virus ready to attack. Life is fragile. Another pandemic can be right around the corner. Take nothing for granted.
2. There are true heroes in times of crisis, and they aren’t bosses and leaders. They are grocery store clerks, trash pickup workers, USPS workers, UPS/FedEx/Amazon delivery people, food handlers, factory workers, Triple A, long-distance truckers, and of course, law enforcement and health care workers—from lab techs to janitorial workers to aides, nurses, and doctors. They show up and do their jobs. Some of them under terrible duress, and they might never recover from the trauma of watching helplessly as people died on their watch. I need to continue to hold them in my thoughts instead of allowing ‘out of sight—out of mind’ to become normal. I called my PCC office a couple of time just to ask if everyone there was okay. They seemed touched to know that someone cared how they were. I need to keep doing that.
3. Mainstream media employees from the lowest-paid to the TV personalities, from bloggers and local weekly newsletter editors to major media giants kept me informed minute-by-minute to what was going on—the good, the bad, and the ugly.
4. People rose to the occasion, for the most part. People helped each other. They performed acts of kindness and selflessness that perhaps even they wouldn’t have foreseen. Strangers were, again for the most part, nicer to each other. Shared catastrophes do that. The Trump foolishness with the anti-mask message messed with that, but most people seemed to get it. I ranted a lot, and my like-minded friends sent me thumbs ups. The ones who didn’t agree with me avoided me, which was/is fine.
5. I missed my grandchildren’s milestones and everyday activities so much, I hope I never take it for granted should I be lucky enough to be present to them, mask-less, again. I want to do a simple thing like pick Wyatt up at school and take him for ice cream or even just back here for a couple of hours. I want to read to them and let them snuggle with me, and if I get to do that, I hope I never forget how great it feels.
6. Video chatting is not a bad idea, even when we’re allowed to mingle again. Not everyone lives nearby. In fact, most of my friends live somewhere else, and it never would have occurred to me to try to ‘see’ them as we talked. Now it’s commonplace—and fun.
7. I love my friends, as well as my family. We supported each other—on Zoom and Google chats, on the phone, in emails and text messages and Facebook postings. We kept each other reminded that we’re all in this together. It’s true that some people’s boats are yachts and some are pieces of driftwood to cling to. There is definitely inequity, and I want to never forget that, but the river threatened everyone and killed indiscriminately.
8. Dogs and cats are great companions.
9. Reading a good author is a gift.
10. There are way too many blogs, podcasts, films, articles, and music I want to check out, and I can’t do it all.