Front Porch: Using gratitude to work through election depression

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”

– William Arthur Ward, American writer of inspirational maxims

If the above sentiment is true, I’m not much in the present-giving mood at the moment, and I feel like dirt because of it.

After all, I have a lot to be grateful for, and I know it. But I’m still surprisingly stuck in my sorrow over the election of a month ago. Never before has any election left me feeling the way this one has, depressed. I’ve been on the losing side of plenty of elections – I mean, being my age, that’s inevitable – but this one feels different, and the ability to just accept and move on eludes me.

Just explaining, not whining. So much has been written already about the depression this election cycle has brought about, and to be fair, both sides were experiencing stress prior to the vote. Before the election an article in Politico examined it all, quoting one psychologist who polled voter-age people about their mental health, finding that about 30 percent felt emotional distress over Hillary Clinton and 40 percent felt the same about Donald Trump.

And now that it’s over … well, that’s another thing, and I’m sure many more words and analyses are coming.

But what do we do about how we’re feeling? Better credentialed people than me are surely making lists of things to do in that regard. I’ll leave that to them. But I will tell you what I am doing.

First, I’m allowing myself to wallow in the emotion for a little while. There’s a process, and I’m going through it.

Also, despite my current inclination to the contrary, I’m not bunkering up, not isolating myself, not obsessing. I am getting out with family and friends, being involved in the community in the ways I normally am. For example, I was one of the organizers of the annual Bing Crosby Holiday Film Festival on Dec. 3, and I embraced it with all the enthusiasm I could muster. Sure, there’s a shadow over everything I’m doing right now, but the festival has been and was again this year a joyous celebration of the life of Spokane’s most famous export and filled with warm and wonderful films and people enjoying themselves as they continued their launch into the holiday season. And the whole audience singing “White Christmas.” I mean, who couldn’t love that?

Also, I’m getting ready to up my game with groups or causes I believe in. Nothing revolutionary or even terribly brave. I just think there are things near and dear to me that might face difficulty in the coming years, so now is not the time to be on the sidelines. I have been supportive in the past, usually with a donation, but it’s time to get a little skin in the game with time and talent as well. Do something positive.

I’m also working on my own outlook, pulling back from being so judgmental, which I have been guilty of. I recognize there can be and often is separation between campaigning and actual governing, and the election winners should get a fair chance to show us and not just tell us what they’re going to do once they are finally in office. Trying to wait and watch with grace.

And I am concentrating hard on trying to hear the music again. You know those songs that skip through your brain, tunes that make you smile, melodies that just live in your head? I’m not hearing them. I’ve always been a pretty optimistic person, so I’m trying to find a way to make room for the sweet sounds again. And I think the way for the music to get back in is through positive action and gratitude.

In the song “Count Your Blessings” from the film “White Christmas,” Bing Crosby sang “If you’re worried and you can’t sleep, just count your blessings instead of sheep.” I’ve got a lot of blessings, and I’m focusing on them like crazy. It helps.

Maybe a little music is beginning to find its way in, as another lyric just popped into my head, courtesy of Irving Berlin and Bing Crosby, from “Blue Skies.” It goes like this: “Got no checkbooks, got no banks. Still I’d like to express my thanks. I got the sun in the mornin’ and the moon at night.”

Thanks, Bing, I needed that.

Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by email at upwindsailor@comcast.net.