This tile is split into two sides, my marker, representing my place along the ideological line, places me to the left.
The first time I voted, it didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. I guess that’s how it goes sometimes, but the result of the 2016 election seemed worse than normal and I almost felt like it was me who had jinxed it. I couldn’t get it through my head that people would vote for that man—it still makes little sense to me. It also makes me uneasy, and it’s crossed a line where it isn’t something I feel I can look past in people. Who you support nowadays, says a lot about a person’s view on power, humanity, and how those intersect.
The second time I voted was during the blue wave in 2018. It brought back a sense of hope and I remember sitting in bed at night getting emotional over tweets telling people to stay in line at voting sites—that people were on the way with pizza to keep them going. I was seeing results from outrage, that I also felt, and it was amazing. It was a night and a week where two years was all that was left, not six.