The Seversons

I have always known this day would come.  Ever since I’ve known Eric he’s been in grad school.  He used to call me in the middle of the day while I was at work or in court and casually mention that he was sitting at Starbucks reading.  Wasn’t that sweet of him?  Grad school hasn’t quite been so stress-free for the last six months or so.  But it was not medical school.  And that’s something to be grateful for.

Eric goes back to medical school in less than 3 weeks.  There will be late nights and early mornings.  He will have a crazy schedule.  I will probably never remember when he’s coming home, even if I know in advance.  I am getting a little early taste since he’s spending a few days with a Medicine team.  It’s now 6:30 p.m., usually he’s only not home by now if we’ve known in advance it would be a very long workday.  I’m excited that he gets to do new things.  And I’m determined not to be the fretful, lonely wife.  (Even though I feel just a teensy bit lonely today.)

But it’s all okay.  Why?  Because I just called Eric, not sure if he was still at the hospital or back at the lab, and he answered.  This rarely happens when he’s in lab since his reception there is terrible.  I didn’t expect him to answer from the hospital, so it was a nice surprise.  I told him that I didn’t have dinner ready, which is true, and told him that since he was having a late-ish night, he was welcome to pick something up on the way home if he wanted that instead of leftovers.  But he said he would pick leftovers.  I thought it a very sweet thing.

I love that Eric loves my cooking.  And I get particularly concerned when a special recipe is involved.  On Tuesday night, I made my Danish grandmother’s Chicken & Dumplings (technically this is soup, but we never use the word soup in the title).  I have been looking forward to soups as it gets colder.  I haven’t eaten C&D in years.  I didn’t realize how long until I took a bite.  And it was seriously like a time machine.  It’s not that we never ate C&D when I was a kid.  We had it often enough that the taste is very familiar.  But we didn’t have it so much that it ever got boring.  It was a meal to be celebrated.  I have never made it before and, as is often the case when I make something for the first time, it wasn’t exactly a perfect attempt.  (I’m convinced something’s wrong in my recipe.  I will have to figure it out.  The amount of broth is all wonky.)  But it worked out fine and the taste was just as I remembered.  And being able to get as many dumplings as I wanted in my bowl is a wonderful thing.

I don’t think Eric realizes how much pressure he is under to like C&D, or something with similar built-in nostalgia.  I expect complete effusiveness upon taking the first bite.  He was complimentary.  And he ate it again on Wednesday.  (This is impressive, since I work Wednesday nights and usually he doesn’t bother with the leftovers I keep in the fridge for such occasions.)  Now it is Thursday, he’ll be coming home late, he was offered alternatives, and he still chose Chicken & Dumplings!  This may be the first time he’s voluntarily had leftovers two nights in a row.  I do love this man.  And I now know that he really does enjoy C&D, which makes me very happy.  Happy enough that I can manage late nights.

I’ve been trying to think about how to write this post for a long time.  It’s a tricky thing to do because, as I’ve said before, I don’t really like to get political in this kind of situation.  (I do let my views be known on a more political blog, which I find to be a better place for such things.)  Still, it’s been a tough campaign year or so.  Particularly since the vast majority of my friends and family do not share my political views.  And many blogs that I follow, both of people I know and people I don’t, have been surprisingly filled with political rhetoric.  Some of this is measured or well-informed or lighthearted, some of it is misleading or false or vitriolic.  It’s been tough for me to stand by and let it all fly, but that’s the position I decided to take some time ago.

But now things are different.  Having come out victorious on some initiatives and races I particularly believe in, I now have a strong desire to drop my neutrality.  Honestly, what I really want to do is say “Suck it!” to many of those whose views have particularly troubled me over the last several months.  But.  I’ve decided not to do that.  Because as I back a campaign that works on the idea of unity over division, my saying “suck it” would not be in keeping with my overall views.  So I won’t say it.  I also can’t say it because while there are many races I’m happy about, there are also many that I am very sad about.  And hearing someone tell me “suck it” would just make me more sad.  When your side loses, you just have to hope that everything is okay.

I am well acquainted with being on the losing side.  Each party has had a good number of wins in the last couple decades.  But I made the decision to switch political parties at an inopportune moment win-wise.  In 8th grade, my class was divided into two groups for a mock election.  I was on the H.W. Bush side.  To be honest, I wasn’t crazy about H.W., at a sleepover I remember seeing his “read my lips” speech and thinking that this made no sense because anyone looking at the man could tell he had no lips to speak of.  I remember it being a particularly nasty race given that we were all 13, but this is politics.  In the years since, I’ve detested some candidates and been ambivalent about others, I’ve rarely had really strong passions in a positive way.  It’s a nice change to have that this year.

Overall, though, I have let it all slide and refused to come out and say what I have every right to say because I believe there should be no political, religious, racial or other test to determine who is my friend and who is not.  I don’t want to lose any of my friends because we don’t happen to all think the same thing.  This is one of the things I like about this country.  And for those of you who have not had a victorious year with this election, I hope that you can remember that it happens to all of us.  And it doesn’t mean the end of the world.  It doesn’t mean you have to like the changes that will or will not be made.  If anything, I hope it will encourage you to be more involved and active.  For me, this election has been one where I’ve chronically followed every slight bit of news, something I’ve never done before.  Being over-informed has its pros and cons, but I do feel like I can really articulate exactly why I voted as I did.  I feel like I’ve made very good progress on my political leanings in the last 4 years, and miraculous strides in the last 8.  I hope to be even better in the next go round.

Let’s remember, it is nice to actually care, win or lose.  It is nice that we get to make a choice and get a vote.  Still, it does make me a little sad that while elections are great things, they are also about as divisive as they could possibly be.  I hope that now that the election is over, we no longer have to confront our differences on a daily basis and instead we can start looking at the things we have in common again.  It is nice to win, but I am sad anyone has to lose.

As for the non-political things making me happy today?

• My mint tea.  If I were not already married, I would seriously consider marrying it.  Or at least going steady.
• Chocolate chip cookies, which I made last night for our teeny election party, and the last batch of which were perfect: a little less than done, nice and chewy.
• Potato salad, which I rarely make because it takes forever and because I love it so much that it would make me obese if I had it on a regular basis.
• Autumn leaves, which don’t last that long in Georgia, but which are particularly lovely right around Emory.
• The fact that I’m “at” Emory at all.  This regularly makes me laugh.  In high school, I wanted to go to Emory so I could work at the CDC.  Now, I’ve done neither of those, but I get to drive by the CDC nearly every day and think about how far I’ve come.