Welcome Back

You may be wondering why I decided to restart my blog after a hiatus of nearly 6 years. I’m asking myself that as well, but some of you may have (correctly) guessed that the election had something to do with it. It did. The need to process my own thoughts and interact with people about ideas in a way that I don’t think is possible in the fleeting 140-character-limit format of Twitter, or the constantly-streaming format of Facebook. I’d been blogging since about 2000 before I gave it up because I was busy and it’s hard to be political when you’re a CPA and your entire job is all about being impartial and not offending clients by being too political. Or something like that. The epic buzzkill of trying to pass the CPA exam didn’t help either.

So here we are again, with a new blog, and a complete reset of my old domain. What happens next? Not with the blog – I mean with the country. The world. All that kind of stuff. Well, to put it bluntly, who the hell knows? But I want to document it and investigate it and understand it. I want to memorialize what I’m living through using more than just my private journal (speaking of which, y’all tried Morning Pages? It’s amazing.), or tracking my daily life and goals in a bullet journal (also totally recommend that). Journaling is fine, but it doesn’t talk back or help you work through to a better idea. So it’s back to blogging and politics and riling up both sides of the aisle.

What else can we do about the election results? Get involved. I don’t mean sharing memes on Facebook or tweeting at your Congressmember. Even sending a letter isn’t all that effective. What does work is calling your elected officials. Telling them directly what’s going on and what’s impacting you and what you want them to do about it. Democracy by representation in a republic like ours ONLY works if we hold our elected officials responsible. Show up at your local city council sessions – find out when they are and sit through them. All of them. Ask questions. Bring your neighbors, your kids, your friends. Did your council member run on a platform of building more parks? Ask them where the damn parks are. Hold them accountable for what they promised, and work through the issues with them.

When elections come around, vote. Campaign for your candidate. Knock on doors, make phone calls, hang banners, volunteer. That’s how we get our voices heard.