One Is Just A Number

A co-worker's children spent their snow day at work today. Every time I saw her 7-year-old girl, she was skipping down the hall. It was like watching pure joy. She was so anxious to get to where she was going and to do something fun that walking wasn't fast enough to get her to her destination. Wouldn't that be awesome to be so happy that you could see it in your whole body? And to be so excited about what you were going to do next that you couldn't wait to get there? That's what I want in my life. That 7-year-old, uninhibited excitement about what the day holds. I want to skip my way through life, not wanting to take the time it would take to walk to the next great thing that is in store for me. What a great way to live that would be!

I'm not a very political person. I watched the first debate because I was promised a meatball sandwich for dinner and had a side of embarrassment because of how little I knew about some of the issues covered. Most days I take for granted the rights we have as Americans to vote. But when I go to the polling place and stand in those plastic cubicles with my ballot, I'm struck by just how lucky I am to have the privilege to let my voice be heard. I think of the people who died on American and foreign soil to make sure we kept that right. I think of the women who so desperately wanted to vote but couldn't because it was against the law. And almost every time I vote, I see someone who had to struggle to get there to vote; people with aged faces and stooped backs who would not be denied their privilege to vote. One year I waited to vote because they had taken the sign-in book out to the parking lot to someone who could not make it into the building. Despite his immob...