To state the obvious: this has been a brutal season for bleeding hearts.

If you’re feeling a bit bloodied by it all, this post is for you.

I don’t know who you’re voting for tomorrow. I don’t know all the stories that have brought you to today. I don’t know what wakes you in the night with hope and fear and sighs too deep for words.

But I know this to my marrow: blue or red or green or purple, our hearts are the same.

You come to this place, this absurd little place on the internet, because you dare to love deeply.

Deeply enough to ache.

Deeply enough to weep.

Deeply enough to hurt so whole-souledly you think you might not make it.

Deeply enough to make it after all.

You choose to give your time, your generosity, and your heart itself to creatures who will love you harder than you can imagine, and leave you sooner than you can stand.

You choose to empty your strength and your spirit into friends smaller and weaker and more honest than your own species.

You do the quiet, unheralded work of day-to-day love that “nobody” sees.

You live to protect the vulnerable.

The last and the least and the littlest shall be first, and your heart already sees it coming true, even as your hands and feet hustle to make it so.

No matter what happens tomorrow, you’re not going to stop loving the world back into place.

No one at any level of government can stop you.

So whatever happens tomorrow, we’re going to be okay, because our tribe of hearts is larger than a party or a nation or a species.

Whoever sits in the Oval Office, keep letting your tender hearts overflow. A Senate’s worth of cats and I thank God for you.

N.B.: Yes, of course, Bucca voted. Of course she voted for the All Day Breakfast Party candidate. All other photos by the radiant Heather.

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