Hours Gained and Lost

I greet every time change with the same barely concealed annoyance.

"How dare you steal an hour from my day?"

How dare you implant this strange hour?"

Either way, my body becomes confused twice a year.

I am, in many ways, a creature of rhythms and routines and anything that disrupts my circadian cycles is most unwelcome. Getting to sleep an hour longer is not entirely without its charms (at least in comparison to having that hour pulled away), but it proves just as baffling to my internal processes.

A sort of hazy confusion sets in with every daylight savings time adjustment. I am never sure what time it is. I am never sure if I am where I am supposed to be or if I am running late. Aren't I normally eating by now? Why is it so dark? Why is there so much light? This low-level fugue generally lasts for about a week before I fully adapt to the new status quo.

It's an appropriate state to be in on the night before the 2020 election. I have a feeling that being unmoored and disorientated will be the reality of many Americans in the coming weeks regardless of how the votes are counted.

I hope that we surprise us. That is to say, I hope that the American people conduct this election with civility and respect for the rule of law. That there are no incidents of violence or attempts to short-circuit the system and that we follow the horse race of the presidential election to its logical conclusion without the interference of malefactors, from foreign states to domestic troublemakers.

I look forward to it being over but don't relish the process of watching it come to a head.