Hello everyone!

I’m back after a self-imposed social media hiatus for Lent. I made the decision after the constant barrage of negative information started to get the better of me. I was doing my good work – serving on my local elementary school governance council, volunteering with the youth in my church, writing here. But I started to suffer from symptoms of anxiety. I knew the cause. Bad information overload with no real way to stop it. So I quit it. Cold turkey quit for 40 days. It was healing – and awesome.

During my break, an incredible opportunity presented itself.  You see, I happen to live in Georgia’s 6th Congressional district. You know the one, right? Our little district made  news all over the world this week when a Democrat tried to win a long-held Republican seat outright against 17 other candidates. And he almost did.

So during all my extra free time, I researched the candidates for this special election to replace Dr. Tom Price, now the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. I chose Jon Ossoff, the Democrat mentioned above.

As his campaign gained momentum, I decided to follow through with my vow to my girls to not just say but do. To show them the importance of responsibly exercising the right the suffragettes before us worked so hard to win. I attended two functions to meet and speak with Jon, and to hear what he had to say. After that, I joined the campaign – writing postcards with the girls, acquiring yard signs for my friends and neighbors, even canvassing for voter turnout. Me! A moderate! Canvassing for a Democrat in a Republican district!

But here’s the kicker – I wasn’t the only one. If you read anything about Jon, you know that he repeatedly gives credit to the women volunteers that are a part of his campaign. I was overwhelmed by the energy and enthusiasm these women brought with them. And the crazy part is, they aren’t all Democrats. The day I canvassed, I did so with a Democrat AND a Republican. Add me, and we were a virtually unheard of trio before last November. 

Suddenly I thought back to my very first post on this blog, a blog borne out of the results of the 2016 Presidential election:

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of feet hitting the pavement. It’s the sound of a sleeping giant waking.

Jon didn’t win outright Tuesday night. He now enters a runoff with the lead Republican. That was expected. But he did become the face for something more. A movement. This district, the highest-educated Republican district in the entire country, nearly went blue for the first time since 1979 . Seriously, check out the map. Scroll down and you can see the 2016 presidential election results for comparison.

One of my great hopes out of the current political climate has been that it will engage people that were asleep, people who just assumed everything would continue as it was, that their voice didn’t really matter. On Tuesday, we saw that it does.

Jon Ossoff may not win in June. But Tuesday’s voter turnout, nearly 200,000, shows us that people are paying attention. They’re using their voice, regardless of who they voted for.

Which leads me to my new hope. That maybe my social media feeds will start to show less bad information and more real life – people loving, people helping, people speaking up for what they believe with their voices and with their feet. That this is just the beginning of a better America.