by Ainslie Jones Uhl

My birthday in early October was not particularly noteworthy until I realized it was the day that my North Carolina driver’s license was to expire. For years, I renewed my license with simple traffic sign tests, paid the fee, and left with a new picture of an older me, a colorful mug shot set on a background of Carolina blue. Our relocation obliterated the easy routine.

I did not want any official documentation that labeled me a Californian, but it was already too late for that. The November election forced me onto the California registry of voters; I wanted to cast my vote for Mr. Obama in person, fully present, immersed in the gravity of the occasion. Although I would have liked to have celebrated his victory in the company of fellow Tar Heels, I will never forget the moment I marked the ballot at my assigned polling place—a designated garage down the street from our rented house, far removed from the civil rights movement of my sultry youth— with tears streaming down my face and a heart so full of the truth of my mission that I could find no words to explain.

Not long after that, The New York Times chose my letter to the editor to run in their Inauguration Day edition and, much to my dismay, there it was in black and white, fact checked and entirely accurate: “San Diego, January 19, 2009”. Ah, yes. I live there now. If I had not voted, I might have been able to hold onto my North Carolina license, despite the deception of my former address. But once that vote was cast, residency was established and that changed everything. There was no point in fighting it. I needed a California license to function locally—to get a library card, to volunteer in the public schools (which is impossible these days without a criminal background check), to avoid having to explain constantly why the address on my license didn’t match my address anywhere else. Read the rest of this essay at Women's Voices For Change.

Read the entire Compass Rose series here.