Yesterday for the first time in my adult life, I paid only passing attention to the election. I'd already voted, weeks before, because early voting is a thing that we can just do now. In part, that's because my wife works as an election officer, and votes early herself.
But there was no obsessive checking of final polling, or reading final prognostications, or doomscrolling.
Instead, I read scripture in preparation for my sermon. I did yard work. I had a helpful call with a Presbytery staffer. I took Mom shopping, and we went to lunch.
When evening came, again for the first time in my adult life, I didn't track the proceedings. There was no evening spent with laptop open to granular county-level results, as talking heads chattered on the big screen. Instead, I read a novel.
There didn't seem a point. It seemed clear, as the last few weeks had progressed, how the election was going. One never knows, of course, but the metapolling trendlines seemed to be going a very certain way.
I didn't want to endure that, to track along frantically scrabbling for handholds as the paths narrowed to nothing. It was possible that I was wrong, but...improbable. So at a little after 10 PM, having finished the book, I went to bed. Rache was so worn with the stress and work of her day that she soon joined me.
When I woke, I took my time, and did what I always do. There was no rush to a screen. What had happened had happened.
So I prayed. Got out of bed. Fed the dog. Started the coffee. Walked the dog. These things must happen. As our pup trotted down our driveway, the paper wasn't there yet, but that was no surprise. It's often late when there are late-breaking headlines.
Above me, the sky was grey and featureless, a dull haze obscuring the deep blue of morning. Perhaps just mist.
Or perhaps the windblown smoke from wildfires now burning in Pennsylvania.
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