I looked back 4 years to see what I wrote after the 2016 election had finally wrapped up. This is what I said: \u201cIt\u2019s over. The presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton is mercifully over. Look, forget who won or lost, just for a moment. If your candidate won, you\u2019re still smiling and gloating. If your candidate lost, you\u2019re still researching real estate in Canada. I get it. It\u2019s been a tough one on all of us. It\u2019s been emotional. It\u2019s been trying. It\u2019s tested us, individually and as a nation. But mercifully \u2014 whether you won or lost \u2014 there is this: We can all start to get our lives back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rings true again today, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I looked it up because I felt I had said it before. That I had FELT it before. Another time. Another place. What seemed like ages ago, but was just some 1,460 days in the past. (Yeah \u2026 I can do math. Not well \u2026 but math.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I\u2019m feeling it again. Exhausted. Glad it\u2019s over. Won\u2019t tell you who I voted for. But I will tell you about what I\u2019m sure a lot of us feel: Elation that we don\u2019t have to deal with the election anymore. We can start to get on with \u2026 well \u2026 whatever did we do before there was an election. And no one quite knows what that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What did we do before the vote counting went on for days? Before we swiped endlessly at our phones for the latest updates, or sat glued to TV\u2019s talking heads \u2013 all remarkably good at saying the same thing over and over again as if it\u2019s always new and profound and full of revelation. Before the debates and the conventions. Before the primaries, and back and back and back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What did we do? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I wonder what I do now. What do any of us do? Does anyone know? There was so much buildup to the election itself that no one prepared us for going back to normal life. (Not that it\u2019s normal: Coronavirus is still running amuck, the economy is sputtering back and here in Florida we keep staring down the barrel of tropical twisters when we should be eating our unused hurricane rations.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What DO we do now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which is maybe why Saturday was so hard. So disorienting. When the surreal life of an election collided with real life. Like a lost cat I thought was dead \u2013 literally \u2026 that\u2019s no hyperbole \u2013 and a daughter breaking down into tears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I missed the TV networks call this historic election because I was out crawling around under my house looking for a wounded, or worse, porch cat named Sunburst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because he went missing Saturday morning. The morning votes were still being counted, and no one knew what to make of it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That morning the cat didn\u2019t show up for breakfast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That doesn\u2019t happen. He arrives like a five-alarm fire brigade every morning. Since he\u2019s deaf, he has no concept of volume, and screeches like an out-of-tune opera singer. Combine that with his propensity to slam screen doors to get attention, and some neighbors have contemplated moving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But this Saturday \u2013 this momentous, monumental, history-making Saturday \u2013 there was no Sunburst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Do you know how hard it is walking around a neighborhood calling for a deaf cat? You think exaggerated movements or loud stomping might help, but it doesn\u2019t. And when you have a cat or a dog missing, you look everywhere. In the car. Up in the attic. You walk the same blocks over and over again. You poke through all the bushes, finding nothing but a wide assortment of unidentifiable things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then a neighbor came out and told me about how the night before there was a fight between a dog and a cat in the street. How he thought it was one of his cats, but they all seemed accounted for and unscathed. He didn\u2019t think anything more of it \u2026 until he saw me. \u201cSo, your cat was outside, too?!?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, man \u2026 that\u2019s a sick feeling. Keep looking. Maybe he\u2019s injured. Under the house. Waiting for someone to come get him. Or worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And because this is the way the universe works, that was about the moment the networks called the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only \u2013 and this sounds really strange to say it \u2013 there was something bigger happening in the world now. I had to find a cat, and that was all that mattered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was crawling around under the house when I heard my neighbor call out that he saw him. And when I finally squeezed myself free, my wife was coaxing him over. Frazzled and freaked out. Ready to bolt, even from us. Scruff-ed up, and hobbling a little, but definitely alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not even badly hurt. Miraculously, and someone explain this, he only seemed to be missing a nail on a hindleg. A little blood, but nothing a rough-and-tumble former street cat couldn\u2019t handle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, the relief. The absolute and overwhelming relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clean him up. Get him fed. Settle him in. Tell him not to go near dogs. Oh yeah, and did something big just happen?!?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe it was an important reminder. Life goes on. Elections are important, but some things are bigger. We all will move on and find new things. Go back to our normal lives, or whatever we\u2019re now living. Re-focus on what we need, remember what\u2019s most important, and mercifully watch the talking heads a whole lot less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That line from a column four years ago sure seems to ring more true now, more than ever before: \u201cWe can all start to get our lives back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And maybe that porch cat might just start sleeping inside for a few nights from now on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I looked back 4 years to see what I wrote after the 2016 election had finally wrapped up. This is what I said: \u201cIt\u2019s over. The presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton is mercifully over. Look, forget who won or lost, just for a moment. If your candidate won, you\u2019re still smiling and gloating. If your candidate lost, you\u2019re still researching real estate in Canada. I get it. It\u2019s been a tough one on all of us. It\u2019s been emotional. It\u2019s been trying. It\u2019s tested us, individually and as a nation. But mercifully \u2014 whether you won or lost \u2014 there is this: We can all start to get our lives back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rings true again today, doesn\u2019t it? <\/p>\n
I looked it up because I felt I had said it before. That I had FELT it before. Another time. Another place. What seemed like ages ago, but was just some 1,460 days in the past. (Yeah \u2026 I can do math. Not well \u2026 but math.)<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m feeling it again. Exhausted. Glad it\u2019s over. Won\u2019t tell you who I voted for. But I will tell you about what I\u2019m sure a lot of us feel: Elation that we don\u2019t have to deal with the election anymore. We can start to get on with \u2026 well \u2026 whatever did we do before there was an election. And no one quite knows what that is. <\/p>\n
What did we do before the vote counting went on for days? Before we swiped endlessly at our phones for the latest updates, or sat glued to TV\u2019s talking heads \u2013 all remarkably good at saying the same thing over and over again as if it\u2019s always new and profound and full of revelation. Before the debates and the conventions. Before the primaries, and back and back and back. <\/p>\n
What did we do? \t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[576,555,561,572,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2020-nutshells","category-animals","category-family","category-in-the-news","category-parenthoodandchildren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2162,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161\/revisions\/2162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}