My 9th birthday was the first one I remember landing on Election Day. It was a pretty epic day. It started off with the purchase of a Loves-A-Lot Care Bear, followed by locating the complete boxed set of the Little House books at the Hwy 99 Costco, and to finish it off we were going to go VOTE! As a bonus, my grandma Olive worked the polls with her best friend Harriet because back in 1983 we voted at the baptist church on 8th street and our grandmas were poll workers.
On my way into the church, I hopped out of the 81 Mercury Cougar (google that beaut!) and dropped my brand new Care Bear into a mud puddle the size of most small counties. I was pretty distraught, thinking that Loves-A-Lot was forever ruined. There were birthday tears and the assurance that after a good turn in the washer, all would be set right.
Depending on which side of the aisle you are on, you either woke up this morning feeling like the care bear who was just dropped into lake Michigan… or the freshly laundered bear. If you reside somewhere in the middle, well you never even got out of the car, because you realize it is ALL a scam.
At 48 my list of things that I know “for sure” is shrinking, like drastically. Sometimes times I pine for my past optimism, you know those hard lines we like to draw in our youth… the,
“I will never ________________ .”
Unfortunately (or if you ask Zach, fortunatley), I was given a relatively short leash with these types of statements…
I’m quite simply not allowed to make them because when I do, God takes out his heavenly rolodex, finds my name, pulls the pencil out from behind His ear, gives it a generous lick and starts writing…
Tuesday, February 7th, 1999- Amber Strehle said she would never ___________________.
Then weirdly enough about 8 years later I find myself at 1 am, clothed in sponge bob pajama pants, no bra, Birkenstocks, and a parka standing in line at Walmart buying chocolate chips for cookies I forgot that I signed up to make the following day.
After enough of these types of lessons, and 4 Strehle teenagers, I’ve slowly understood the rather smallish number of hills I am required to die on.
None of these can be discussed on Facebook of course, hardly even mentioned in polite society, and I don’t recommend starting a conversation about Roe in the Walmart check-out line.
But I digress….
Do you remember back in the glory days of Facebook and blogging, come every November there was this lovely little challenge that the most well-intentioned bloggers would start on the first of November?
30 days of Gratefulness Challenge
It was so innocent, and pure, I loved it.
I woke up this morning a year older and quite grateful for the opportunity to experience another trip around the sun. What may I ask are you grateful for this post-Election Day?
I’ll go first…
-I’m super excited for another chance to make everyone in the room uncomfortable with my remarkable ability to bring awkwardness to every single conversation I enter into. This makes other people feel much better about themselves, encouragement is one of my gifts.
-Recently while gathered around a humble table in Michigan one of my boys proclaimed after a robust family meal, “For some reason, I am just so happy.” This statement made me a little squishy inside and I have thought about it almost every day since.
Today was our first hard freeze, there is fresh snow on Pilchuck and the sky is just sooooo blue. I feel like it was extra special because of the horrible storm we had over the weekend and isn’t this just how gratefulness works... we know the good because we have all lived a bit of the not-so-good.
I hope the rest of November finds you well, take solace in the lack of campaign ads. Gather the people you love most around you, say the awkward thing, squeeze the Care Bear, and please don’t argue with strangers on NPR threads... Trump is gonna announce next week, let's take a few days to gather ourselves.
Comments