Every once in a blue moon, you get one of those days that validates your life.
The kids and I ditched school today and went on a little field trip (actually, they ditched school — I don’t go to school). I have a friend who works for one of the state assemblywomen, so we got to sit on the chamber floor while they were in session. You can imagine how difficult it was to explain to a 6 and 8-year-old that we were going to sit on a floor and see how bills are made. When we got there, I think they were pretty disappointed to find that we were not in a factory of some kind and that — despite my repeated explanations — we were not, indeed, going to be sitting on an actual floor.
Anyway, onto the validation story. The real reason we were even at the Legislature was because my friend had asked me to testify at one of the committee meetings (I won’t bore you to sleep with the details). I’m all about ranting and raving when it comes to the current state of affairs, and I’ve worked on several campaigns, but I’ve never done anything on the legislative side. One of my main reasons for avoiding this kind of work? I’m borderline narcoleptic, so I can’t handle anything that resembles a boring meeting (back in college, I almost fell asleep in a meeting with three other people). Still, when you complain about the world as much as I do, sometimes you feel kind of guilty for not getting your hands dirty and trying to change it.
And I have to admit that the idea of getting “into it” gets my juices flowing. Just the mere act of having to put on big girl clothes and heels (even though I now have blisters) gives me a little bit of a rush. And going to a place where you’re sure that more than one person is going to know your name is, well, validating.
So today, I sat in the Assembly chamber with my kids and listened to an hour and a half of mind-numbing policy get read to a bunch of people who were probably on Facebook or playing solitaire. I watched my kids — who basically had nothing to do — actually sit and behave themselves the entire time. I talked with my own assemblyman and was cordial to him as he lied to my face about education being a priority (I didn’t call him out because he was on the committee I was going to testify in front of — I’m crazy but not stupid). And I had so much direct and indirect contact with lobbyists that I felt like I had to take a shower when I got home (I’m assuming that’s what the energy at a used car salesmen’s convention is like).
And I didn’t end up testifying because there ended up being about a zillion other people wanting to speak in support of the same issue. The thing is, while I hear all the time — and I tell my kids all the time — that every voice counts, I’m sadly not even buying my own crap anymore. Because the fact is, if the Republican members were, by some stretch of the imagination, actually going to listen to anyone, it was going to be the big business guys (who just happened to be on my side this time). It wasn’t going to be little old me. Or, sadly, even a thousand little old me’s.
What I did not feel like doing today was staying. Not one bit of me was yearning to be in that building. Not a tiny piece of me wished I had an office there. Put it this way — I’ve always said that the only person who should become a theoretical physicist is someone who just loves, loves, loves theoretical physics because you have to be dying to study that stuff if you want to be any good at it. I felt the same way today. Being part of the legislative process would put me in a mental hospital. Which kind of makes me wonder if the people who are in it are just mental to begin with. . . (and you know I’m kidding, all you lovely friends of mine who do this type of work and are clearly. . . not. . . crazy. . .).
So, yes. Vindication. Validation. I’m on the correct path — or at least not on a particularly incorrect one. And I’m doing a good job with my kids — at least on a superficial level based on the image they’re able to portray. And I’m coming to grips with what little power I have as just one person — at least unless I set myself on fire like that guy in Tunisia.
And at least I know what doesn’t fit. Now if I can just find some cute, black pumps that I can walk in for a good amount of time without getting blisters, I’ll be in business.
Tammy Soong is a writer, wife, and mom from Reno, Nevada. She takes an absurd amount of pain medication, but not enough to have actually named her children "Newt" and "Elfie." She spends most days stressing out over clutter, writing stuff for this place, and working on podcasts with her gal pals, the Blogging Betties.