Voting as a Celebration

My polling place, coincidentally is at the school I work at. I noticed it was pretty slow in the middle of the afternoon so I slipped in to vote on my afternoon break. After school I usher the kids onto their buses and as I was coming back inside, I ran into two of my daughter's friends. They were grinning ear-to-ear and told me that they had just voted for the first time. They said they felt powerful and were really excited about it. Later as I was walking through the parking lot to leave, I overheard an older lady talking to some younger ones about the 60's, reminiscing I guess. People were coming in a steady stream at that point, hurrying in after work. I got into my van to drive home and got to thinking about what a privilege it is to be able to vote in the way that we do. In my town, the voter turnout is expected to be the highest ever, around 80%, so I'm happy that so many are taking advantage of it. It really is a celebration in many ways. Part of my celebratory mood had to do with the fact that the ferocious campaigning is over, part of it that the weather is still so beautiful, part of it that I think my candidate will win. We'll see, but if you haven't voted yet, get going!! And please, tomorrow, can we just all get along no matter what the outcome is? In other words, no sour grapes? I'm going to be tempted to leave a few "neenerneenerneener" comments at some blogs tomorrow, but I'll take the high road.