I voted.

It has been three weeks since I posted here, and my plan is to do a long (and probably long-winded) catch up post tomorrow when I'm rested and caffeinated.

But for tonight, just had to post, not about politics or political opinions or who I want to win tonight. I just wanted to post that I voted today, my second vote in a presidential election, and even the second time around, I found myself civically and dorkily swept up in a moment of pride and patriotism as I cast my electronic ballot. 

It's so easy to forget how frickin' amazing this is, what we do every four years (or more often if you're much more civic minded than I).

We vote. We vote without fear of persecution, without worry of corruption. We vote knowing that no matter how much the person next to us at the polls may dislike our opinions, we aren't enemies. Tomorrow morning there will be a president. The sun will rise. And the result won't plunge us into civil unrest. 

We vote not simply believing, but knowing, with certainty, that our ballot will be counted, that every ballot will be counted.

I've grown up with this. We all have. And for nearly every day out of every four years, it hardly even registers. But today as I voted it did. I was humbled by it, by the small, beautiful miracle that voting in freedom truly is. So many people would die for that ability. So many people have died. So many have dreamed and cried and hoped for it, desperately and fervently against a backdrop of oppression and violence.

This election has been mean and ugly so often. But none of that, not the TV ads or the phone calls or the bickering, gets to take away from what it means to vote the way we vote.