I called the doctor’s office first thing Monday morning –  the one I visit when the tendinitis in my elbow flares up or my neck is so stiff I can’t turn my head. Today it is a deep pain where my low back meets my hip. I can’t bend over far enough to pull on my left sock.

Help me, I said to my husband. I can’t get my sock on. I had tried squatting, bending forward, bringing my foot toward my chest. No luck. Too stiff. Too stuck.

David rolled up the black sock like you would for a small child, and slipped it over my toes, across the arch, to my ankle.

When I arrived at the physiatrist’s office for my appointment, I handed over my insurance card, signed another HIPAA release, settled in to wait, while a large TV screen silently played the opening credits of a movie I hadn’t seen. I thought about my absentee ballot, which I still hadn’t completed, even though the primary was scheduled for the next day.

The exam was friendly and brief. I bent over, twisted left and right, laid on my back and pointed my legs in the air, pushed against the doctor’s hand. No neurological damage. All the important stuff works. He found a spot in the lower right quadrant of my back and pressed.

Ouch! Yes. That’s the spot.

Muscle, he said. Ligament. Some arthritis. Maybe a disk. No need for imaging. Ice. Anti-inflammatories. Ice, 20 minutes, 5 times a day. Lots of ice.

As we get older, it doesn’t take much to trigger that kind of muscle strain, he reminded me.

As we get older, and he meant himself too. We began the visit with small talk about our college age children. Where are they? What are they doing?  What do they care about?

I am getting older. I am more prone to injury. I weigh 10 pounds more than I did two years ago, despite no change in diet or exercise. I am more tired.

I left the office with a prescription for Naproxen and a follow up appointment that I’ll probably cancel. By next week, we both know I’ll be fine.

Later in the day, I stopped at the City Clerk’s office to turn in my absentee ballot. When Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the primary race last week, I didn’t know what to do. Who would I vote for? Biden? Sanders? I dislike them both equally, for different reasons. My children were lobbying hard for Sanders.

You can only ask me once a day who I’m voting for, I told my youngest, who follows polls and reads and listens to everything possible about the election. Birch is 15, the only one in our family who can’t vote, a passionate force for change, opposed to the World Bank, the US military, our health care system, capitalism in general. I admire the passion. Sometimes it’s exhausting. Still, I tell myself, I’d rather have kids who care, even when I don’t agree.

One more day till the Michigan primary, and I had been holding onto my absentee ballot for weeks. I voted yes on the millages. That was easy. Yes to the art museum; yes to funding for the roads.

Candidate for president. I left the space blank and tossed the ballot in my bag. I’d finish after I dropped off Birch at martial arts. On the way there, I explained that I was voting for Biden, that I had finally decided he was my best option.

Silence from the passenger seat. Then disappointment, a flood of last-ditch arguments.

I listened, as I had been listening all month. I pointed out again that there are more than 35 years between us, and while I don’t expect my children to adopt a pragmatic point of view, I also don’t want them to deny my position.

Disagree with me, but don’t dismiss me.

Birch looked pained. Shocked that I could choose Biden in all his sexist, homophobic, transphobic, elitist horror.

And then I had an idea. I could let my nearly 16-year-old child vote in my place. I could fill in the ballot with Birch’s choice, not mine. I had come close to choosing Sanders myself. I had been swayed almost daily by arguments for and against both candidates. Every time I read an article about the fate of Elizabeth Warren’s supporters, I felt like I was reading about myself.

Was this ethical? Was I acting rashly? Did it matter?

My back hurts. I know that politics is a messy game. I’m frustrated that I can’t vote for Warren. So I took my black felt tip pen and filled in the space for Sanders. Birch offered a quick smile and got out of the car for martial arts.

When I told my sister, she was not impressed. You just decided not to vote, she said. Maybe it’s something I can’t understand because I don’t have children.

My husband liked the idea. I thought of doing that myself, he said, but I decided not to.

If you’re reading this and you don’t agree with my political choice, we can have that discussion another time. I know – Israel, health care, etc. etc. This isn’t really about elections. My sister is right. It’s about parenting. And this is the parenting choice I made this day under these particular circumstances. I feel good about it.

Tuesday night I’ll lay on an ice pack and watch the returns come in. After class, Birch said thank you and made one last request: I wish I could have an “I voted” sticker.