I am at peace this election eve, friends. I wish more people felt the same.

I have faith in the citizens of our country. And I know our country is already great right now. We need to keep it that way. We need to exercise our right to vote in a Democracy, and we need to trust in the democratic process.

I know some more stuff. I know gas is less than $3 a gallon, and I know there are so few available jobs out there because just about everyone who wants a job HAS a job. I know unemployment is lower now than when Trump was in office.

As a mother who used to go to the grocery store with three little boys under the age of three in one shopping cart while I pulled another shopping cart for my groceries and had to keep track in my head of how much I was spending because all I had was the cash in my wallet, I have a problem with the cost of groceries today.

I’m in a different position at my current age, but I still have a problem with olive oil costing almost twice what it used to before the pandemic. The same with butter. I have a problem with how much one paper sack of groceries costs. I am shocked that an 8-pack of Diet Pepsi costs almost $9. (I only buy it when it’s buy one get one free these days, and I do not live paycheck to paycheck. It’s just too much to pay.) I have a problem with ground beef costing $6 or more per pound. For hamburger meat!

I have a problem with people blaming a candidate for the four years she was the assistant, not the head honcho, for all of the country’s ills. Not even a head honcho is to blame for ALL of a country’s ills.

I have a problem with people calling this strong woman “the most liberal ever.” Let me tell you something that you might not know. Conservatives typically seek the job of prosecutor. Liberals typically seek the job of public defender. She was a prosecutor, working her way up to Attorney General of her state— the chief prosecutor of her state. Her track record doesn’t allow her to be put into a neat little box with a label.

She was born here. Her parents weren’t. She didn’t grow up wealthy. She grew up in a single-parent household (like me). She MADE something of herself. This is the American dream. And she wants more people to be able to attain the American Dream. That’s what “growing the middle class” means. She doesn’t want to make the rich richer, unlike her challenger. (P.S. A tariff is a charge that a manufacturer adds to their balance sheet; the more it costs to make a product or get it to the consumer, the higher the price of the product. You will see prices go up across the board when tariffs are levied “against the importer.” Consumers will pay more.)

I have faith that decent people will vote for someone who is presidential, someone who cares about the poor and wants to bring more people up into the middle class, someone who cares about the future of our country, someone who has been, all of MY life, becoming the person who will be the first woman president of our country.

I’m not voting for Kamala Harris because she’s a woman. I’m not voting for her because I don’t want to vote for Trump. I’m voting for Kamala Harris because she is serious and has the track record to prove it, and she takes seriously the office of the president. And she has read and understands the Constitution of the United States and has taken the oath to uphold it over and over throughout her distinguished career. To her this is not a job or a feather in her cap, it’s a privilege and a great responsibility. She knows she answers to us.

Look at the screenshots of these elected or appointed female chief executives around the world. (From Wikipedia.) It was only a matter of time before we caught up with them.

But Kamala Harris will not be elected because we’re trying to save face. She will be elected because this is her time, this is our time, and this is the right thing for our beloved country. I’m so full of hope I can hardly stand it.

Stay calm. Take heart. Have hope.