David McElroy

Republicans are almost certainly going to take control of the U.S. Senate in today’s elections across the United States. Conservatives are excited and progressives are trembling. There’s change in the air. It’s a revolution.

But haven’t we seen this movie before?

In 1994, Republicans gained a staggering 54 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives to take control. They were running against President Bill Clinton and attacking Big Government in a mid-term election. It was the Newt Gingrich-led Republican Revolution. Remember the Contract with America? It was going to change everything and reduce the size of government. How did that work out in the long run?

In 2006, Democrats picked up 31 seats in U.S. House elections to give control back to Nancy Pelosi and Co. In these mid-term elections, Democrats ran against President George W. Bush and his alleged attempts to hurt poor people and wage perpetual war around the world. Progressives promised to use their power to stop Republicans from continuing various wars. What changed for us in the long run?

Time after time, one party or the other has held power and the other party has taken power by promising change. But the two parties simply swap the seats of power like some giant game of musical chairs. If you believe in individual freedom and have watched this long enough, you come to realize that their promises of big change don’t come true.

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You can almost always tell whether I’m getting the love I need. When I’m not getting the love I need, I gorge myself on ice cream and cookies and doughnuts. I stuff as much as I can into my body — trying to fill a hole that can only be filled by love. The result is serious weight gain.

So the general rule for me is simple. If I’m eating in a way that’s good for my body, I’m probably feeling loved and understood. If I’m gaining weight and making daily trips to the ice cream aisle for Blue Bell cookies ’n’ cream or rocky road, you can be pretty sure that I’m empty inside and I’m engaged in a futile unconscious attempt to fill that hole with food.

I’ve been thinking about this today because of a comment that a friend made on Facebook Thursday night. He’s down and frustrated this week, and he said, “Me siento perdido y tambien he perdido mi fe en el amor,” which roughly translates to, “I feel lost and I’ve also lost my faith in love.”

His comment struck me as sad and I could easily empathize with him. I’ve spent a good chunk of my life feeling the same way. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that his phrasing didn’t strike me as right.  What does it mean to “lose faith in love”? Does that even make sense?

Human beings have a very fundamental need for love and understanding. Love is just as necessary to the healthy functioning of a human being as food, water and oxygen. Lack of oxygen can kill you in minutes. Going without water might take days or weeks to kill you.

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On Tuesday, a California woman took a trip to the beach. Her daughter pushed her wheelchair into the water so she could feel the water at Laguna Beach rush onto her legs. Her joy was obvious, but it’s an experience she will never repeat.

This was her last trip to the beach, because she’s checking into a hospice facility to die.

For me, this bittersweet image tells a lot about the truth of the life we live on this planet. It can be sweet and joyful. It can be an amazing sensory experience. But it’s all too short — and death is always waiting at the end far too soon.

When I was a child, a year seemed like forever. Even an afternoon or a week could seem like forever sometimes. The time between one Christmas and the next was definitely eternity.

That changed slightly as I grew, but I was still always eager for the next step. Others seem to have shared this pattern. We were impatient for life to begin. Or, rather, we were impatient for what we thought life was going to be for us. We had high hopes and we believed that life would be different for us than it was for other people. We were going to be happy and successful. Our futures were unlimited.

Life would be very long for us. Death was so far away that it almost didn’t seem to exist.

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