Allow me to holler from the rooftops a hearty “hell yeah” for the earthquake that hit the ballot boxes last Tuesday. The results of the mid-term elections were beyond my wildest dreams. We Americans voted in numbers that were, as they say, “too big to rig”. Ever since the results came in, I feel lighter and more relaxed and just… joyous. Full of hope for our country.

We did it!

One of the many things that I love the most about what we collectively did to begin this overdue reckoning and rebirth of America is that we now have a much more diverse pool of elected representatives. We have our first Muslim senator. Minnesota has its first female governer. Mississipi has it’s first Black senator, and Wisconsin our first Black governor. And those are just a few examples.

That said, I think it’s wise that we not take this humongous win for granted. To not become complacent and disengage from what is going on in our government even though it’s now going to be in more capable hands. Trump has been neutered but he’s still, for the next two years, assuming his medical conditions don’t do him in first, the President. Part of me worries there’s a shoe that’s going to drop. Like one that comes seemingly from out of nowhere. Perhaps an enemy of ours will use this brief moment in time where we’ve all breathed a huge sigh of relief and for just long enough our eyes will be off the prize and this enemy will strike.

I really can be a skeptic, can’t I? I suppose that’s the result ot 10 years of Trumpism and MAGA.

It occurred to me the other day that the entire decade of my 50’s has taken place in this polarized-by-MAGA “Christian” Nationalist alternate galaxy. Yet, I’ve got 70-some days until I turn 60, and I’m feeling like I owe it to myself to make the very most of it. Which is easier now that the clouds have begun to lift with the good guys winning and there is tangible hope on the horizon for my beloved America and it’s beautiful people. I’m exhaling now.

How about you?

Maybe I’ll step off my political soapbox on this blog for a bit and embrace a new term I learned this week: pronoia. It’s the opposite of paranoia. It’s the mindset of believing that the universe has got your back and is consipiring to bring good things to your life. Maybe pronoia is just another word for faith. Anyway, it fits in well with my general optimistic nature, which has been brutally challenged in the last 10 years. It needs tending to.

I took my pent up anxiety just before the mid-terms and channeled it into completing a thorough organization of all my craft supplies. It was a happy little distraction, a trip down memory lane, going through it all (old greeting cards, some pictures, and other do-dads), which I hadn’t anticipated. It’s all organized and waiting for me down in my rec room now. I’m all set to dig in and create to my heart’s content.

Before I leave you with the song that immediately came to my mind’s ear when I read the definition of the word pronoia, I want to share this snippet of something the author Kurt Vonnegut said to his wife one day that really amused me. For context, he had just told her that he was going out to the store to buy one envelope.

“Oh she says, well, you’re not a poor man. Why don’t you go online and buy 100 envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And I go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is-we’re here on earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. What the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is, we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it’s like we’re not supposed to dance anymore.”