Freedom Tears

I cried. I cried so hard I could barely see my ballot to fill in the ovals. I pulled it together long enough to mark every single one, and then inserted my ballot into the machine -- I was the third one counted!

In the parking lot, it was raining, and my tears and the raindrops mingled. Felt so good, such a relief.

I love voting in person, experiencing the lines, the people's "yearning to be free," and to have the physical experience of it. The tears were my catharsis in a way.

A release from the past 9 months of campaigning and "politicking" endlessly for Obama, for Gregoire, Burner, and all three of our wonderful local candidates: Huster, Spring and Viebrock.

A release from the guilt over NOT voting all those years I lived in Paris and London. After Dukakis in 88, when I was an active "Democrat Abroad" in Paris, I did not vote at all while living abroad. I moved back here in December 99, so I have only been voting again for these past 8 years.

This is a release, too, from the strain of not knowing. Not knowing whether Obama, and all our Dems, will win. I still don't know, but at least now I've done the one thing about it that I KNOW will help get them in.

Now I go on and help others to vote. And tonight we PARTY!

Thanks to all the wonderful people I've met along this long, fun, wild, crazy yellow brick road!!!

All my heart, and love, and soul to you.

Allison