I Voted!

I have a sticker that says just that. Like I did for all my homework assignments and exams in the days of yore, I somehow managed to wait till the last minute and crammed all the reading in an hour before the polls closed at 8pm on Tuesday. Made it to the neighborhood voting garage (so weird that a voting place can be out of someone's garage at their home…) with 10 minutes to spare and got in my semi-educated votes in, undeniably proud that I made some sort of effort to exercise my right as an American.

It may not sound like much, but this is coming from a girl who always lived her life blissfully ignorant of politics, current events, and hot buttons issues. My favorite story to point out my ignorance is from nearly two decades ago, when my intellectually superior junior high best friend railed about the Iran-Contra scandals. I looked at her and asked "Are those the annoying debates on TV that are bumping all my TV shows at night? I hate them too!" I think I stunned her speechless and why she chose to continue to be my friend, I'll never know.

Fast forward to the present, and it seems somewhere along the way in the past few years, awareness has crept into my head. I find myself suddenly very passionate about certain issues (though by no means am I joining any protests or grassroots campaigns yet) and asking people if they're voting too.

The proudest moment I have is of my parents signing up to vote around the same time I did years ago. The fact that my dad, a relatively conservative kind of guy, chose to vote against Bush and told my mom they were doing so because we had to protect abortion rights, blew me away on so many levels. For that alone, I would respect my dad for eternity.