Life Is the Stories You Can Tell
  • Life is the Stories You Can Tell
  • Sing His Praises
  • My Creed
  • Books I Love
  • Christmas Letters

Marriage Ballots

11/13/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
​I joined Lance in line, hoping to exercise my right to vote sooner than later.   Reports indicated the wait time approached two hours and my visual assessment revealed no end in sight.
 
“I wonder what happened to my mail-in ballot,” I mused to the woman standing behind me.   “I have been looking for it for weeks but, to the best of my knowledge, it never arrived.”
 
The conversation centered on my missing ballots for a moment or two.   Someone hypothesized that I was not on their mailing list… “No,” I responded.  “I received the mailed ballot in June for the Primaries.”  Was it Post Office incompetence?   Who knows but probably not…   I concluded the conversation with the suggestion that my occasional-mail-gathering-sometimes-less-than-careful children had probably dropped them in the driveway or something.     Oh well.
 
Lance did not join the conversation.
 
Earlier in the day Tanah texted me, “Where is my mail-in ballot?”   I told her I had never received them and she responded “Crap.  Crap.  Crap.”   The mailed ballot’s failure to reach our home cost Tanah her chance to vote.    I related that story as well.
 
Lance was silent.
 
Forty-five minutes later we were still in the same line.   We’d advanced a little but had not yet made it inside the building….and the line segment inside the building was two times longer than the line extending outside.   It was shaping up to be a long night.
 
A clean cut, conscientious man with a mail-in ballot in hand, approached and asked about the necessity of standing in the line to deposit his form.   “Go inside and ask,” we advised him.    His query catalyzed a general announcement.    “If you have a mail-in ballot,” the official’s voice boomed through the crowd, “you do NOT have to wait in line.  If you have one in your car, go get it.  If you have one at home, think  about going to get it.  You can simply walk to the front of the line and deposit it in the box.”
 
Lance broke his silence.
 
“Uh.....our ballots are in my mail box at home.”
 
SERIOUSLY?   Seriously.
 
“Why don’t you go get them?” he suggested.    Leaving him in line, I somewhat graciously (and somewhat not) went home and got my ballot.   I also got Chick’s and Tanah’s ballots.    I returned to the polling station, walked to the front of the line, dropped my ballots in the box, and decided to graciously greet my husband before leaving the building.
 
I found him in line, having moved forward a significant amount in the time I’d been gone but still far from the front.   

“Did you bring my ballot?” he asked me.
 
No.  No.  I did not.  I had actually thought about bringing his ballot but decided not to.   Though it made no sense to me—why he would want to stand a LONG TIME in line to cast his vote rather than submit a paper ballot—it seemed to me voting in the booth was what he wanted to do.   If he had wanted to use his mail-in option, then why did he remain in line when I left?   Why didn’t he just come with me?   Though I did not understand his reason for wanting to cast his vote in the voting booth, I accepted it.   There are lots of things he does—like throw his dirty clothes in a pile in the corner instead of in the dirty clothes basket—that I do not understand but that I have come to accept (mostly).  So, no, I did not bring his ballot.


“No,” I said.
 
“I guess you are teaching me a lesson,” he quipped.
 
No.  Not that either.   My decision not to bring the ballot was not vindictive nor did it have any educational motive.   I simply did not think he wanted it.   He would have me end the previous sentence after the fifth word, maintaining that I simply did not think.   But I did think.    A lot.   I just did not think accurately.
 
Eventually we reached the same page, so to speak, on the ballot issue.  Communication (or miscommunication as the case may be) issues overcome, we both returned home.   He filled out his ballot, returned to the polling station, and cast his paper vote and I went to a Young Women’s meeting, late but still in time to be marginally useful.   
 
We came together and we cast our ballots.   As did millions of other Americans.
 
And the ballots were counted.
 
And now it is time for our nation’s communication (or miscommunication as the case may be) issues to be overcome, for us to come together.
 
I am cautiously hopeful for America.  I really am.  I hope we will work toward unity, that we’ll be together forever, strong in diversity and powerful under God.
 
I have no hope for our marriage.  I really don’t.
 
I have not hope because I have knowledge.  I know we will continue to work toward unity (dirty clothes piles aside), that we’ll be together forever, strong in our diversity and powerful under God.
 
God will bless our marriage.

May He bless America too.

Picture
While standing outside, waiting in line to vote, the local news had a live broadcast. Unbeknownst to us, we were on T.V. FUNNY STORY: Wanting his students to learn about elections in real time, Tuesday at school Lance assigned his students to watch the news. When they returned to school Wednesday they thought he'd assigned them to watch the news just so that they would see him on T.V.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Teresa Hislop
    [email protected]

    Archives

    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    September 2012
    August 2012

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.