Mental illness

So I took a little hiatus again, but this time with good reason.

I attended a GOTV Meeting (that's Get Out The Vote) for Geno Zamora last Thursday and was asked if I would run the GOTV office for his campaign, as a volunteer, the last four days to election day. I of course said yes without hesitation.
The thing about the GOTV part of a campaign is there is no way to really prep for it.
Its kind of like running a short race (5 or 6 K) without training. The thing is, you do train. If you've done it before you know what to expect, and you try mentally, and physically to prep yourself. Most people end up dreading election day, until it happens. We prep by eating right (ha ha ha) and sleeping well the night before (another joke) and we get up at 5 am and try to say, ok lets go get this over with. But by 10 or 11 we're hoping it lasts forever. The rush, the adrenaline, the pure excitement.

So then its over, you look at the clock and its 6:45pm. The polls are about to close, you've done all you can do. You can't remember where the time went, but you've dropped literature, sent volunteers out to walk door to door, made phone calls and supported volunteers while they make those phone calls, telling everyone you know or think will vote for your candidate to get out and vote. And praying to God there'll be enough of them voting to actually win it.
Then you go home, shower and center yourself and head to the victory parties. I've never been at a real victory party, I've always been on the losing end of things.

Then you go to watch the results come in, and the first hour or so is fun, drinking, and chilling, and networking. Finding out how the other races went on E-day and waiting.

Then it comes, the precincts start reporting, and its looking good. In fact you're excited, and then, you see that one county that you were counting on, and, no good. The excitement and adrenaline and pumped up attitude you have, are all crashing at once...

This is the part of the day that is the most extreme, as every precinct somes in you go one way or the other, wondering if there is anyway to come back from that margin of votes.

Then you're drunk, or exhausted, and depressed and you go home (someone takes you of course) and so you stare at the computer hours longer, refreshing the SOS website and wondering what happened.

Then you wake up the next day, feeling horribly and exhausted and you think: Well there's always the general coming up.

So now that you've read this, do you agree that we're probably mentally ill, those of us who love this?

yeah I think so....