Then and Now

When I was a kid, I wanted to be popular. I also wanted to be thin, pretty, and well dressed. I wanted to have enough money to shop at mall stores and I wanted good hair. I wanted to buy bunches of books when the Scholastic orders were sent out from school, go on vacations to faraway places, and sit by the window in the back sometimes instead of in the middle. I wanted to get a leg every time we had chicken instead of just when one of my brothers wasn't home.

I wanted to move away from here, from this place where we tell people, "No, our school really is in the cornfields."

I wanted to become a Catholic or a Lutheran because of the pageantry and elegance of their services and I wanted to kneel at the altar to take communion. The fact that I was so comfortable in their polished pews surely meant I should attend there, didn't it?

I liked the evangelical churches where a few friends went and took me with them. Their music was great. There was shouting, though, in those few I attended, and much weeping and calling out for ... I don't remember what for. There were polished pews there, too, as I recall, and parishioners were nice to guests, but I wasn't comfortable.

I wanted to wear makeup every day and I couldn't wait to vote, to step behind that secret curtain and vote how I believed.

All I wanted, really wanted, was to be like who I saw as everyone else.

At one time or other in the years since those were my life's dreams, I've done most of those things. I've been thin, although I never stayed that way. I've bought whatever books I wanted, traveled some--although I wish it had been more ... I still hope for more. I came to like the thigh better than the leg and I don't mind the middle seat now that I seldom sit in it.

But there are things that were ... well, different from what I expected. I don't think I ever achieved popularity, but I got past the point of caring about it, too. My hair and how I dress and how often I'm not too lazy to put on makeup ... well, I didn't take into account I'd have to actually do things to reach those particular goals. They didn't magically happen one day.

While I still love the same things about the Catholic and Lutheran churches I always did, I'm still the Methodist I've always been. The church where I go does have kneeling at the altar for communion, but my knees insist that I be an on-my-feet Christian, so there you go.

Then there's the voting. I'm still thrilled with voting although I miss the old voting machines. I enjoy working the polls and cheering for first-time voters and ignoring rude ones and being reminded that this is how it's supposed to work in a democracy. The shouters and the quiet ones all pull the same lever. The popular ones and the ones who sit in the middle seats all pull the same lever. The ones in jeans and the ones in business suits, the high school seniors on their way to or from school and the other seniors who've been voting for more than twice as many decades as the kid in line behind them wishing they'd hurry. They all pull the same levers, too.

Do I think it's the same way everywhere? No. Am I happy with where we are politically in this country? No. Do I believe our country is being led in the right direction? No.

But I'm glad to know, here in the cornfields, that voting goes as it's supposed to (although not usually the way I want it) and that we can all pull the levers knowing the count will be legitimate. On voting day, we are everyone else.

Like everything else on my young-Liz wish list, voting is our responsibility. Finding the truth is our responsibility. If it means sometimes getting the wing, sitting in the middle seat, and not being especially popular ... well, that's the way it goes with the system's working. Keep pulling the levers for who and what you believe in.

Have a good week. Be nice to somebody.