The Nov. 3 election will change a lot of lives – especially mine

This election will be a life-changing event, no question about that.

And I was wondering exactly how it would change my life. To start off with, I’m a news junkie…have been for the last 30 years or so. I spend much of my time watching the news on TV, scrolling through Internet news sites and scanning my local paper, the Los Angeles Times.

As a retired journalist with not much else to do, I found all that quite enjoyable, until Trump was elected. Now, I’m dealing with bellyaches, insomnia and incredible mental stress wondering what the hell my fellow Americans were thinking when they elected this guy and what Republicans are doing by kowtowing to him and his insane ideas.

All that could change, though, with the upcoming election. Or it might not. Following are the two scenarios that have been rolling around my head, usually at 3 or 4 in the morning while I try to get some much-needed sleep, when I think about the election.

Should President Trump win, I have decided that I will relinquish my status as a news junkie and try to find other things to occupy my mind.

I could take up yoga, although I think I’d look pretty silly in yoga pants, and no one really wants to see that. Maybe I’d stock up on incense and become a meditation guru. Or I could lose myself in a fantasy world of video games.

Or I could start knitting.

At the very least I’d cancel my Twitter account, quit writing my blog, cancel my LA Times subscription and bid goodbye to Nicolle Wallace, Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper and the rest, just to avoid watching the United States collapse under four more years of Trump.

I’d need to enclose myself in my own little news-free bubble, which is not something I would really want to do.

Now, should Joe Biden win, things would be different. Granted, all of the country’s problems would not simply disappear. We’d still have hatred, discrimination, cops who beat up people of color, a rocky economy and the pandemic.

But at the very least, we’d have someone at the top who would be able to deal with our problems and whose goal would be to bring people together and not tear them apart.

We would have someone who cares about women – in a good way – as well as minorities, climate change, international relations and people in general. Someone who would bring the other side – Republicans – to the table and not constantly call them names and leave them out of the discussion.

Someone who would let the scientists take over the fight against COVID-19. Someone who would tell Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping that they are full of malarkey. Someone who will put the United States back on the right road again.

And, most importantly, we’d have someone who wouldn’t give me bellyaches and might allow me to sleep at night.