don't have sex before the election
on control, anxiety, and breaking the cycle (also a warning about unchecked UTIs)
Four years ago, I woke up at 4 am in excruciating pain. I dragged myself to the bathroom, wincing every step of the way, the pain in my lower back almost unbearable. It could have been minutes or hours, all I remember was sitting on the bathroom floor, my head pressed against the cool edge of the tub, waiting for the pain to pass. I somehow found the strength to reach up and grab my phone off the vanity, my abdomen and lower back straining with the tiniest movement. I googled my symptoms and self-diagnosed myself with a UTI or possibly appendicitis, but I was committed to dealing with it myself.
In hindsight, I should have just gone to the emergency room and called it a day, but it was the morning of the 2020 election and I had been urged by my family, teachers, and many people in my life to take precautions and avoid leaving my DC apartment. In the days prior, downtown DC shops boarded up their windows, professors made sure to tell those of us living in DC (it was in the middle of the pandemic after all) to avoid the downtown area near the National Mall and the White House. My pain-addled mind took all of this so seriously, I knew logically that the odds of a right-wing mob accosting me at a hospital or urgent care were slim to none, but all I could think of was the anxiety and terror I was feeling—for the election results to slowly come in, for what was happening to my body, and for the complete fear I had of hospitals.
On the cusp of a new election, I look back on those few days with a mix of anxiety and pain. I still remember the haze I was in for the entirety of election day, the phone call between my mom, Sophie, and me where I was convinced to at least go to urgent care for a UTI test, and the way I floated in and out all day, consumed by physical pain and the fear that America was about to be plunged into four more years of darkness. My dad drove down to DC on election night, he voted for Biden and then came straight to me; Sophie had brought me to urgent care earlier and they told me I had a UTI and prescribed me a low-dose antibiotic, but even after taking it, I kept getting worse and worse, so I convinced my parents to bring me home instead of take me to the hospital.
I felt out of control, the country was sitting anxiously in front of their TVs watching the votes come in, and I was in a car, feverish and unable to move. I was 15 in 2016, I identified as liberal in a small conservative town, but my knowledge and beliefs were yet to be fully fleshed out or challenged by those who knew more and were more personally affected by policy decisions than me. When Trump won, I went to school and listened as my classmates cheered his victory. They were conservatives because of their parents or Barstool, or because they didn’t know anything different and had never been exposed to anything outside of our very small, very white, very republican town. Flash forward to 2020, and so much was different. I lived in a city where I was meeting people from unique and beautiful backgrounds, and I was constantly exposed to opinions and ideas that intrigued me and challenged the very basic way in which I saw the world.
There’s that joke that going to a liberal arts college radicalizes you, but it has some element of truth to it. Information was presented in such a way that it encouraged further research, it opened doors in my brain that I didn’t even realize existed. For the first time, I knew I wasn’t one of the smartest people in the room. I had so much to learn about, somehow I missed out on so much before college. I think I scared my parents, I left for college a cute little liberal wearing #girlpower t-shirts and I came back home armed with Marxist theory and a new-found frustration for how moderate the Dems were, even if they claimed to be the party of change.
I can confidently say that 2020 was the first election in which I was proud to have formed a genuine political opinion, and coincidentally, it was the first presidential election I could vote in. I felt like my views gave me a sense of control; even if the 2020 circumstances of “vote for this old guy or vote for this actual fascist” were less than ideal, I still felt like I had a little bit of power. I knew we had to move forward and vote for a candidate that (even if less than my version of ideal) would allow for a future in which I could cast a vote for the progressive candidate I longed for. When election day actually came around though, I had no control over what was happening to my body and even less over what was going on in the country.
I’ve always had a problem ceding control, finding myself in situations where I’m unsure of what the outcome could be, so in the days leading up to the election, I’ve been in a constant state of anxiety. I’m panicking on today’s election day in the way I was physically unable to do 4 years ago. Last election cycle, I felt like everything was completely out of my hands, for every worry about what America would look like after the results were in, I had 10 about what was happening to my body. I ached and panicked and tried to tell myself I was fine, and as the poll results continued to pour in and electoral results slowly were counted, I began to understand what was wrong with me. I spent the day before the election result was called in the hospital— my UTI turned into a kidney infection, they gave me ultrasounds and IV fluid bags and a very high dose of antibiotics and I left finally aware of my diagnosis. As I came to the next morning, I dragged myself in front of the TV for the first time in days and watched as the result was made official.
This time feels different, I’m scared, that’s a given. I voted by mail last week so I’m already thinking about how everything is out of my hands from here. There’s no kidney infection, no excruciating pain or panic about what’s happening to my body to distract me from exit poll numbers and Steve Kornacki’s personal Superbowl. It’s going to be a day of long walks and refreshing websites and aimlessly finding activities to distract myself. Should I see the movie I’ve been waiting to see? Is it worth sitting in a dark theater for hours trying to act like the images on the screen mean something while my brain is imagining the worst-case scenario?
The wheels keep turning, they’re rusty and barely functional, but against all odds, they keep going. Sometimes they work in the way we want them to go, carry us in a direction that makes us feel hope or positivity, other times they bring us towards something dark, but regardless of direction, the wheels are breaking. This cycle goes on and on, it’s painful and anxiety-inducing and incredibly flawed. They spin faster to try to keep up and veer further and further off course. Nothing makes sense, how can it when the wheels are fundamentally broken? How much longer can the wheels hold up before they disintegrate completely, how do we repair them, change the structure to adapt to the changing landscape around us?
Nothing changes in a day, no one election can fundamentally change the system that contributes to so much darkness, but this election can prevent it from going backwards. I’d like to think that with enough forward momentum, we can find a way to evolve, our government can adapt and grow and accommodate the voices speaking out against genocide, throwing support behind marginalized communities, prioritizing basic human rights, and actually acting on it, rather than abandoning any sense of morals in office and putting money, pride, ego above all else. There’s so little hope right now, and if I can take even the tiniest sliver from the dire straights we find ourselves in yet again, I have to grab on to it.
I don’t have a UTI-turned-kidney infection today. I peed after sex and drank some cranberry juice so I’m hoping to get through this week unscathed. I can’t distract myself from the boarded-up windows and every TV in the DC turned to the news and anxiety lodged in my stomach like a rock, no matter how hard I try. The wheels will turn regardless, I can’t push them or force them in one direction no matter how much I want to be in control, I have to sit back and wait, wait for a result, wait for change, wait for anything.
this is quite literally the perfect election essay