Fangirling

Dear Starshine,

I am an avid Planned Parenthood volunteer and started volunteering to Get Out the Vote in 2008 because I was inspired by Obama to volunteer.

A few years ago, I knocked on your door, and I was kinda fangirling out because I recognized your name, but I tried to play it cool. I always felt bad about intruding, sweaty, into people’s front gardens and peeking into their homes. After 2016, the stakes are too high, though, for any sort of sense of shame or embarrassment about chafing thighs from underwear soaked with sweat, stinky armpits, or knocking too vigorously on the door of a citizen who works the night shift.

Welcome to the Democratic Party, where sunburns and blisters and chafing and dehydration and heat stroke are always part of the fun! One of the rewards of canvassing is that it also acts as free anti-anxiety medication. Doing something, anything, no matter how small, keeps the anxiety at bay, because after the 2016 election, I never want to feel the dread and the sense that I didn’t do enough to help out.

Hope you join us in 2020!