Church Ladies

We’d carefully planned the night. It was our first time voting and we weren’t going to get it wrong.  We’d looked up our polling station location online – a church about a half mile from the house – and we triple checked that our ids were stuffed in the pockets of our coats.

We arrived to the smiling faces of elderly church ladies who flipped through sheets of paper, rows and rows of inked up names of my brand new neighbors. I remember thinking about how much I felt like part of my new community at that moment. This was only just a place on a map, but through my vote, I got to help choose the people who would work to make it a home.

After I ticked the requisite boxes with a 10-cent Bic pen, one of the church ladies smooshed an “I voted” sticker onto my cheek. The streetlights flicked on just as we stepped outside and made the half-mile walk back to our first house.

Becca Cruger