Does it ever get to you?
You know, whatever that “it” may be: the long winter, traffic, the pseudo version of NASCAR that goes on in the parking garage after classes, or even something as simple as the price of gas?
Well, it has gotten to me. My family says I am obviously in a “mood,” and I am not sure if I disagree.
I have a growth in my head. That is my “it.” I would love to tell you that it’s my great American novel, but it isn’t.
I have had cancer before, and at least this isn’t that.
The growth is, as they tell me, very benign, and even expected, given the cancer I had. Still, it’s there, and it shouldn’t be. Every once and a while it gets to me.
Every once and I while, when I see that youthful assumption that life goes on forever, I get angry when I read about the wasting of life that goes on in this world.
I have voted in many elections, I have felt my vote make a difference more times then I could count.
I get furious when the Sunday Morning talk show hosts want to call the election now.
We live in a country where a great woman gets more press for the fact she cries at a press event (and then gets lambasted for stiffening up, or regaining her composure, as some of us call it) than she does for being the first viable female candidate for president that this country has seen.
I am ready to throw in the towel.
Am I the only one who sees the sexism in that?
I am not a Clinton supporter, by any means, but why is it that women have to cry to seem human?
Perhaps, that is why I have been drawn to my own mortality today. Does my own lack of tears make me less human? Or less of a woman?
Going to school has taught me many things, like how gender is constructed for us socially, and given me an acceptance for who I am.
But where is the out rage amongst my fellow students? How many of you will vote and how many of you won’t?
How many of you will dismiss this chance to make history by saying one vote doesn’t make a difference?
I would ask you to think about what it is you plan to leave behind in this world, when you leave it.
Because the best-laid plans of living to a ripe old age sometimes get laid to the wayside, and a missed opportunity to participate in history doesn’t come that often.
However you vote, don’t miss your chance to make history, to be heard.
Marie Allen is a 44 year old student. She has TK children and lives with her partner in TK.