Since buying a house, I haven’t had the chance to change my electorate- so it’s still Papakura with Doyet and family walking down to Chini’s school to cast our votes (Toni can vote now, how time flies) and it feels like old, old times when dad was running for office and we would all be dressed, smiling very hard smiles as we voted at our precinct in Naguilayan, waving to people, our eyes meeting familiar faces and thinking, is this stupid cunt voting for my dad or not?

Always that small hard knot at the pit of your stomach, a flash of premonition and of the question- how much of your future will ride on the results?

But dad got felled by a stroke while in office and while he wasn’t fine, we actually were but we didn't know it yet. It would take time for reality to catch up with fear, with uncertainty. And one day, we found ourselves at the beach without dad and while his absence was a small, omnipresent shadow, the day was bright and glorious; we were truly fine.

I deactivated my Twitter account just the other day because I realised that the amount of energy I was putting into it didn't translate to anything tangible really; because who am I, a nobody with zero influence, with my persistent stabs at the status quo? The comfort you think you get believing that your opinion somehow counts is outrageously inconsequential compared to how others actually profit from it. Fuck Twitter and fuck Facebook.

And guess what- the majority really don’t vote the way they should. The dissonance has grown to a point where I just give up because you know what, whoever wins, I’m fine. I’ll live. I’ll survive. I’m buying a new $2,000 iPhone when my current one is barely a year old because I could.

But I voted today because I could and because in this country at least, there’s still more than a fistful of hope; and who am I to begrudge others that?