Pardon My Absence

Been holding my breath for a little while…

The last time I wrote, before now, was the morning of Election Day. Which is the longest I’ve gone without writing a column in 4 years.

You know, the night before Election Day, I wrote a piece that was just kind of intended as a reminder that in elections, close doesn’t count, and wishes don’t count, and feelings don’t count. Only votes count. That was about the sum of it.

Yet when I opened Medium and went to publish, I was confronted with a cascade of stories about how President Trump was going to win. Which seemed to me a desperate attempt by a bunch of people trying to get in under the wire and on record saying that, so if Trump did win, they could say they predicted it.

And that gave me a funny feeling. Like I didn’t even want to be on the fringes of that kind of thing. So although I predicted nothing in my piece, I trashed it. Because I felt it was coming from a place that was too rooted in negativity. And started over.

And ended up with “Love Thy Neighbor”, which many of you have read by now. And I’m humbled by people picking up on the sentiment and sharing it. Even when they used it, and me, as an example of someone who had no idea what they were talking about.