And Then I Did This

I'm laughing as I type this.Hey, Amster, I saw on FB that Ann Kirkpatrick is having a Congress on Your Corner event way east at a Safeway on SPeedway.  Do you or your boys wanna go?  
I can't believe I'm typing those words :-)
Anyway, I'm going after Pilates, at 11.  Mr. 15 can drive my car if he wants.

She laughed back and explained why life got in the way of us all going together.

We laughed. 

That's progress. 

So, I confronted my demons on my own on Saturday.  My Congresswoman wanted to shake my hand and say hello and answer my questions and I was up for it.... once I determined that there would be security.

Once bitten, twice shy. 

I drove farther south and east than I usually travel, feeling grateful for Google Maps and a full tank of gas.  My worries went no further.  I turned into the parking lot and the first thing I saw was a police officer, hands on his hips near his weapons, eyeing my vehicle.  Slowing to a crawl, the better to survey the scene, I found two other armed officers before I slipped into a space and got out of the car.

Christina-Taylor wasn't there.  She and I are at our own Safeway, closer to home.  This was all about me and my demons.  I wasn't sad.  I was scared.

Scared but not terrified, and that, too, is progress.  When Ron Barber was our Congressman I couldn't make myself attend his CoYC; even after a personal email and a kind and loving phone call.  He understood, as I knew he would.

But I'm not letting the shooter take this from me.  The chance to shake the hand of a sitting Congresswoman, to have a meaningful conversation about H.R. 8 and its chances of passage in the Senate (cautiously optimistic... it might happen), to have a photo op with the promise of a hard copy to come in the mail - NO, he does not get to win.

It was a lovely fifteen minutes of signing in and meeting the local staff and promising to visit them often in their newly opened offices, of talking about the future and Mayor Pete (who needs lots more publicity if he wants to be more than a blip on the radar), of participating in my democracy.  Both The Congresswoman and her District Director (Ron Barber, reappearing on the scene) knew that this was a thing for me, and I admit that I enjoyed the personal as much as the political. 

We shared some snark about the absence of such events when Martha McSally held the 2nd Congressional District's seat, posed for the photograph, and I was done.  I thanked the police officers for keeping me safe, and walked back to my car.

It was a non-event.

Except that it wasn't.