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This is not the post I thought I would write.  But in retrospect, especially after the Brexit vote, I’m not sure why I thought otherwise.

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The cold, grey rain outside matches the mood in the house.  We went to bed last night at 1 am.  We didn’t know the results until we woke up this morning.

I tried to explain what happened to the kids, but I failed, miserably.  Their fears are very concrete: What will happen to the marriages of gay family members?  What will happen to their Muslim friend?  Our fears are a lot more amorphous, and the only answer we’ve found is that we just don’t know.

I wish I had better words, but they’re really failing me this morning.

Lady Hillingdon, seemingly reluctant to have sex with her husband, wrote in her diary: “When I hear his steps outside my door I lie down on my bed, open my legs and think of England.”

How fitting a sentiment since I feel like America has been royally fucked by this election season.

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The ChickieNob and I started binge-watching the new Netflix show, The Crown.

It begins with Queen Elizabeth’s marriage to Prince Philip (or, at the time, Princess Elizabeth’s marriage to Philip Mountbatten), and I’ve heard that the series will go up to Diana’s death in the future.  We heard about this series a few months ago, and we marked the release date on the calendar, eager to be mentally transported to England.

The show is fantastic, and we spend the hour alternating between shouting at the television, “Get rekt!” every time someone delivers a clever takedown and holding each other while we sob.

It’s nice to close our eyes and think of England, taking an hour off at a time from this election.  And it’s also nice to get the perspective the show gives to the monarchy, especially a woman’s rise to power.  Yes, the job was Elizabeth’s whether she wanted it or not, but the criticism and grace tell a larger story of what it means to be a woman in charge.  To be held to a different standard, to be scrutinized, to be judged.

It’s a show about the British monarchy, but it comes full circle in helping frame the story around Hillary Clinton.  Hopefully by tonight we will know the fate of our presidency in America.  Beyond voting today and trying to get others to the polls, this election is finished.  But afterwards, regardless of who wins, America needs to take a good, long look at its relationship with women.

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Sometimes it is necessary to not focus on the details in front of you but instead use any means of distraction to get through a situation.  Everyone should have a place they can mentally go when the going gets tough.

Other times, we need to come back to reality and face the facts in front of us.  It starts with the narrative surrounding Clinton and it stretches out in a multitude of directions to a multitude of groups.

Deep breaths, everyone.  Today it’s about the election.  Tomorrow it’s about being better and doing better as a country.

Every time I throw a dinner party, we end up with too many leftover desserts.  What happens is that I start with a realistic menu based on the number of people attending the meal.  Then I add an extra dish or two because I worry that the table will not look full or people won’t be able to find something they like or it just won’t be… enough.  It won’t fulfill an abstract concept of enoughness.

Then I plan for a dessert or two, and quickly start increasing the number of desserts and the size of those desserts because I am (1) worried that people will still be hungry after dinner and (2) worried that it won’t be enough.

For Rosh HaShanah, for instance, I made it so that each person at the table could eat nine cookies.  Nine.  Oh, and did I mention they were enormous chocolate chip cookies — only six fit on a cookie sheet.  But people could have nine of them.  People were full from the over-sized meal.  They barely made a dent in the cookies on the table.

In my defense, it’s sometimes hard to judge what people want, or to know whether or not you’ve done enough except in retrospect.

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I am worried about Tuesday.  I’m worried about this election in a way that I’ve never been worried before.  I wasn’t a fan of Romney or McCain, but I was never scared listening to them speak.  I knew they could lead the country, and any problems they created were fixable issues.

But this election is different.

I am terrified of Trump’s America.  I want to believe the polls that place Hillary ahead, but polls are like promises — people may keep them… or they may not.  We don’t know definitively which way this election will go, and I am scared that people have become complacent.  I’ve heard too many people say things like, “Well, I don’t want Trump, but I don’t want to vote for Hillary, so I’ll just leave that part of the ballot blank.”  Or not vote at all.  And I’ve heard too many people say things like, “Don’t worry, Hillary has got this.”  I equally fear that people will not vote, trusting that other people’s votes will keep Trump out of office.

The only way to ensure that Trump does not end up in the White House is to band together and not hand Trump the keys to the White House.

The most direct, proven-to-work path is to vote for Clinton.  Anything short of that is continuing the possibility of a Trump White House.  I’m not saying that because I want Clinton in the White House.  I am saying that because if no one gets enough electoral votes, the House of Representatives chooses our next president, picking from the three top candidates.  I bolded that because I don’t want you to miss those words.  Each state gets one vote, but the House is made up of 246 Republicans and 186 Democrats.  If you choose not to vote for Clinton, you are, effectively, creating the possibility of a Trump White House.

This isn’t about likeability.  This isn’t about emails or holding one person accountable for all human errors.  This is about the opposite scenario, and Magpie says it best:

I’m worried about the possibility of our country being led by a man who has admitted sexual assault, who has used his foundation for personal gain, who’s on trial for fraud with regard to Trump University, who hasn’t released his taxes (because he doesn’t want to show us that he hasn’t paid any), who has called for the ban of an entire religion from entering the US, who belittled John McCain for being a POW, who’s called Mexicans rapists, who attacked a beauty pageant winner for being overweight, who wonders why we can’t use the nuclear weapons we have, who thinks women who have abortions should be punished, who makes fun of disabled people, who disregards the First Amendment and wants an end to freedom of the press, who thinks global warming is a Chinese hoax, who loves Putin, who doesn’t pay his contractors, who … do I need to go on?

So I worry.  I worry about whether I have done enough in doing my part to help ensure that we get someone into the White House who is not going to scapegoat whole groups of people.  I worry about whether there is something more I can do between now and Tuesday night.  I worry about everyone else — will they do enough to stamp out hatred, or will they leave the door open for a possible Trump White House?

We’ll know within 72 hours.

Yesterday I had coffee with the twins’ old Kindergarten teacher.  We do this from time to time, especially now that the twins are out of elementary school.  She is one of the kindest, gentlest, wisest women I know.

Technically, we had the coffee date on the calendar for several weeks, but it felt like it materialized at the exact, right moment.  I received bad news as I got to the parking lot, and I had to walk inside with a straight face, trying not to cry.

Okay, I did cry.  But that’s not the point.  The point was that who better to spend time with when your heart is hurting than a warm, caring Kindergarten teacher?  She is criss-cross-applesauce and sound-out-the-word and add up the green pegs.  She is a reminder that everyone starts somewhere, and that the simplest moments are the ones that stick with you forever.

Like your children’s old teacher buying you a bagel for dinner because everyone needs to eat.

It’s funny because one of the twins has a roundabout way of doing things.  We say that they operate by their own clock.  They always get there in the end, on their own schedule.  This fact came up in the conversation, and we marveled that it’s true — leave that kid alone with some gentle prodding in the correct direction, and they will get there in the end.  (Whenever there may be.)

I am the opposite.  I am obsessed with time; with controlling time and using time wisely and worrying about time.  I never worry about my kid reaching where they need to go, but I worry about myself.  I worry that I am late.  That I’m not making the most of every moment.  That I am being left behind.

It makes no sense: How I can trust time to unfold as it needs to unfold with my kid, but I don’t release my death grip on my timeline for myself?

I’m running a race but I’m the only one on the track.  There will be no winners or losers because there’s just me, huffing along as if I’m being chased even though there is no one else there.

I think that sometimes the universe places the right person in your path at the right time.  That is what happened yesterday: a randomly scheduled coffee date unfolded right when it needed to unfold, reminding me through comfort, kind words, and the acknowledgment of well-timed coincidence that there is a timeline out there.  I just have to do enough to head in the correct direction.  I’ll eventually get there.

One week from today, the twins and I will walk down to our local polling place and cast our vote for Hillary Clinton. The twins have been voting every election since they were three months old. Back then, it was finger to the touch screen, which was a little easier for group participation. This year, we’re each taking a third of that Tic-Tac-sized bubble and filling it in for Hillary. We’ve been practicing. We’re ready. Onward!

Image: Ally Aubry via Flickr via Creative Commons license

I considered going to an early polling place, but I really love the kids to feel the energy of election day. I like to treat the whole day as a holiday, celebrating voting, making a special meal, and then piling into our bed to watch the voting results roll in.

I don’t want them to treat voting like the act of turning in the ballot is the end point.  I want them to see the action through until the results are in, and even then to look ahead as how they can either support or counterbalance their newly elected officials.

I don’t want them to go to the polls and barely register the qualifications of the candidate, just voting down the party line.  I don’t want them to walk away from the polling booth assuming their job is done, and they only needs to glance at the newspaper the next day to see who won.  And I don’t want them to get frustrated when the results don’t go according to plan.  I want them to take a long hard look at what they can do differently next time as well as ways they can make life more enjoyable between turns.

I have invested a lot of energy in having them fully involved in each election, making sure that they understand there are many other elected officials beyond the president, and they need to pay attention to each one.

So we will be at the polling place next week, and I hope you are, too.  We’ll be eating homemade pizza for dinner, and staying up late to watch the first female president win the election.  We’ll be seeing this damn thing through to the end, and then looking beyond because the work of keeping our local community as well as nation running isn’t just important every two or four years.  It’s important every single day.  Remember that.