Reflections on Losing

On Tuesday, the election for the office for which I was a candidate was held. I lost. The weird thing is that I don't feel anything about it. It is what it is, and I am neither happy nor sad with the outcome. People have been coming up to me to console me. It's nice of them but completely unnecessary. I didn't want to lose, but I had made my peace with the idea of losing long ago. I didn't campaign much to speak of for a variety of reasons. In fact, if such things are measured by who puts forth the most effort and money, the guy who won deserved to win. I wasn't even in the game.

When I initially decided to run, it was a couple days after Daddy's funeral. After much thought, I followed through with my intent. I had a plan. I had a dream. Wherever he was, I was going to make Daddy proud. And then life happened. If it had just been a matter of losing Daddy, I could have held it together and campaigned my shy little heart out. Instead, in the middle of my first official campaign stop, I had a devastating, terrifying family emergency. And then another. With Daddy gone, I had no center to help me deal with these things. Suddenly, the wind was gone from my sails and any thoughts of campaigning stuttered to a stop. Eventually when I felt like I couldn't take any more and my hands were visibly shaking from the stress of my entire world coming down around me, I retreated to heal. I took stock of my life and thought about the things that really matter to me. Personal growth and self-reflection were not goals I necessarily had in mind when I quit my job to run, but they turned out to be fringe benefits.

I am glad that I ran because I learned that I absolutely want to be in politics. Eventually. I also learned a lot about myself. I learned I have opinions and some of them are quite strong. At first when asked a question, I floundered. In many ways, I still feel like I am in that stage between grown and grown up. Why should what I think matter? I wondered. And then I came to a point where I wondered why it shouldn't. Even more than that, I realized that I know exactly what I think about a lot more issues than I thought I did.

Basically, losing wasn't the worst thing that ever happened to me. My heart and soul weren't in the election, and I expected the outcome I got. The bottom line is that if I had it all to do over again, I would even if the outcome were the same. Obviously, I would have preferred to win, but it was not to be.

The whole affair is not entirely emotionless for me, however. Specifically, two things happened that really got to me:

1. My aunt text messaged me to tell me about this picture.
2. I read the headline "McDaniel to be sworn in Wednesday."

Now I am very, very sad. Not because I lost or because of who won but because, as of yesterday, the period of stasis ended and life moved on. My dad just became a quickly dimming memory at the capitol. He was replaced, soon to be forgotten. Or that's how it feels anyway. There's nothing unique or unfair in it. It's just the way things are. It's still excruciatingly difficult to deal with.

So, to wrap it in a neat bow, this election gave me time to reflect on true loss. I will run again sometime in the future, stronger and wiser because of what I learned this time around.