By the time I write another column, this election will be over and we will have some new, and some old, leaders. It is my fond hope that the anxiety will have eased and all the questions will be answered, though I doubt it will be that easy.

You know I stay away from politics, and I’m still keeping my distance, but I do want to say this one thing, and it doesn’t matter which “side” you are on.

Stop looking for the monster under the bed.

Whatever your positions on things, whatever you believe, whomever you support, it’s past time to stop looking for the scary, the extreme, the nightmares that trigger a fear response.

We are better and stronger than that.

Look at what our country has accomplished as a country. We started as an offshoot of England and have grown into a powerhouse, a force to be reconned with. We have a seat at the head of the table, and our opinion not only matters but other countries make decisions based at least in part on what we say.

That does not mean we don’t have problems. Of course we do, but on the whole, we are an amazing country that others look up to and work to emulate.

If you look hard enough for monsters, you are always going to find them, but that doesn’t mean they are real. In fact, most of the time they are a conglomeration of the worst of our fears that we attribute to someone or something even when those attributes don’t apply to just one person or thing. It becomes easy to pile them all up in one place. But we can let our fears and our imagination get the best of us, and we aren’t doing ourselves any favors with that.

Every morning the day begins, with sunshine or rain or clouds, but it begins. Flowers bloom, the grass grows (mostly), the air is breathable, there are jobs to do and classes to attend and family dinners to share.

For the most part, daily life is pretty good. We talk to neighbors, even if we disagree politically, because everyday life is not about politics day in and day out. It’s about asking someone to take in our mail while we’re on vacation so it won’t pile up. It’s about checking in on the older neighbor next door that we know just had surgery. It’s about seeing someone at church that we haven’t seen in a month and stopping to catch up. It’s about calling our cousin whose daughter just graduated to say congratulations. It’s about going for a walk in the neighborhood and waving, saying “hey, how are you?” to people we’ve known for years.

“Monsters under the bed” is Hollywood stuff. It’s our imagination, our fears, captured and brought to life, but it’s not reality. On either side. Are there things that worry me? Sure, just as I know there are things that worry you.

But we are all still just everyday people, living our lives, trying to do good, hoping to get a little ahead when we can, loving our families, enjoying our time off when it comes, and making the most of this proverbial dash that is our life.

When my time is over, and whatever comes next comes, if I have any awareness, I don’t want to find myself thinking of all the things that I was afraid of and realizing how that fear limited my life and kept me from expressing kindness, happiness, joy, with others. I hope that I can see that no matter what, I practiced that beautiful golden rule and did indeed treat others as I wanted to be treated.

The monsters under the bed aren’t real. Stop looking for them.

Elisabeth Strillacci covers crime, courts, Spencer, East Spencer and Kannapolis for the Salisbury Post.