I love voting! I registered to vote 2 months before my 18th birthday, just so all the paperwork would go through in time for my first election. The first election in which I voted in was 1999, and it was on a day that I had to cheer in a boys varsity basketball game. So I wore my cheerleading outfit to the poll, voted, got my sticker, and left. I proceeded to wear this sticker throughout the game- I was SO proud! It was my civic duty to vote and I was damn proud of exercising this right, which had it been 80 years earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to do.
Since then, I have never missed any election, primary, ect. Whenever I can vote, I vote, proudly. Each time, the anticipation never abates. In college I even went home to vote, 1 hour away, because I did NOT want to vote absentee, my vote was going to count.
Things have changed this election- I don’t want to vote. I am dreading having to make this decision. I don’t have the option not to vote, it’s not in my DNA, so I have to do it. Each day, as new things come out in the press, I am more and more wishing I wasn’t registered, then it wouldn’t be a problem. But I know one day my kid is going to ask me who I voted for, and not voting is going to sound much worse than voting for (insert candidate). I feel pressure this election, I live in a swing state for the first time in 50 years, my vote might actually mean something.
Now I’m trying to look past the rhetoric, so I can make the right choice. It’s stressful and I’m so conflicted.
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