Why This Election Matters To Me

By Mossy Muldowney

I teared up at a bus stop on Tuesday watching a Tik Tok. It’s quite an embarrassing thing, that a fifteen second video on an app could bring me to that, but it did. It was a video of someone pleading for people to give themselves a chance in this election, to vote for change, to think of our future selves. I think the tears came because I’ve been so scared for my future. I’ve been stuck in a space where I am torn in half. I love this country with my whole heart; I’ve never felt the sensation of home envelope my heart, mind and soul as much as I have here. Unfortunately I’m scared that sometimes in the future I will have to leave because it seems simply impossible to ever stay here. I don’t think I could find somewhere to live, I don’t know how I would grow a career and if I ever had children I don’t think I could ever put them through our archaic education system, and that’s if I could afford it. I’m scared because I don’t even know how I will survive the next three years. There’s never enough money, there’s never enough time. The people I love are leaving and I am deserted. I am being pulled between the land I love and the people who own my heart. It’s a wonder I’ve survived already when I have been chucked out of every system. I’ve seen true horrors and I’m here not because of anything anyone else did, but purely because of myself and my strength. I shouldn’t of had to be that strong so young. I shouldn’t have seen the things I saw or felt the things I did. I shouldn’t have been let down by the mental health services, the medical system, the school system, the judicial system. I shouldn’t have been let down.

This government has let me down, but it goes further than that. It’s the man on that street in the storm with the wind weathering his head like he’s some sort of stone. It’s the woman who’s about to be homeless with her four children because her husband is abusive and the system doesn’t see enough ‘proof’ as if the tears of the children and the fear holding them all isn’t evidence enough. It’s the young child with autism who should be starting school this year but can’t because the schools that have the resources to support them are full. It’s the grandmother on a trolley in a hospital crying silent tears as memorials of her pain because there are no beds, there are no doctors, there are no nurses. It’s me. It’s you. It’s your family. It’s your friends. It’s your enemies. It’s us, it’s all of us. All of us have been let down and we all have a chance now to call for change and to enforce it. Don’t be passive, don’t be silent; vote and be heard. Think of all the people before and the people after. Don’t let this be another opportunity to do something that is wasted and deserted along with all of our hope and chance.