Unexpected

Good morning, all.  Promise that this will NOT be a rehash of all that has been said, written and posted since the Presidential election results were confirmed early yesterday.

And I won’t get into attempting to analyze what our country is facing next.  The President-Elect has already served one term, so there’s not much mystery there.

But what I will say is that this country reveals itself to us in many strange ways, sometimes wonderful and other times less so.  We now see some hard truths that we had thought, or at least hoped, were in some ways behind us.

And make no mistake….just as in 2016, this is what a large swath of our population wanted.  Even if you and I did not.  But in the United States of America, we are taught to accept the will of the people.  At least we’re supposed to do that.

So what now?

I have a lot before me, as I turned 64 a few months ago and had been looking ahead to retirement in just a few years.  Will I still retire?  Will I be ABLE to retire?  I’m in pretty good health and while I have a job that is somewhat demanding, I am successful in that role and mostly enjoy the work.

But when I rose early yesterday and saw the election news I was bracing for, my first thoughts turned to my five grandchildren, whom I love very much.  Three of them are girls, one a college student, one a high school student and the third a first grader.  What may happen in the next four years, and beyond, that influences the course of their lives?  And all of our lives?

I keep reading that “we lived through four years of this before,” but worth mentioning that not all of us did, as we lost a massive number of Americans to COVID in the last year of the President-Elect’s first term in office.

Simply put, we go on.  Whether we like it or not, as someone once said.