Exactly one week from today, the election will be over.

A new president will be elected and maybe, by some small miracle, we can all go back to some sort of peaceful co-existence.

I say that, but I highly doubt it will happen.

Regardless of who is elected, there will still be people saying that's not the person they voted for and will spend the next four years finding every reason to be critical.

I can't think of a more acrimonious election than this one.

At least not during my lifetime.

The first election I remember being able to participate in was the Bush/Clinton one. I was working at my first post-high school job and felt like I was out in the real world or whatever semblance that may be.

I was amazed to hear people discussing their political choices and opinions. I was raised that we didn't we talk about politics - not even among family.

I was concerned it was going to turn nasty, but it never did.

Even when barbs were maybe traded, it was in good jest and with respect.

Maybe it's because in our earlier election cycles, free of social media full of political pundits trying to persuade us with a meme, we didn't discuss who were voting for.

We didn't talk about highly personal things like politics, religion, or how much money we made and now those things are put down in the front parlor on display for everyone to see.

But now, we are bombarded with opinions virtually non-stop - at least for another week, anyway - complete with hate and foulness being spewed to other people.

All of this, over a presidential election.

We used to honor the office of the president because it represented our country. That office was the leader of our country and even though we may not have voted for the person, we respected the office.

No, I haven't liked every president we've had; but I've darn sure been civil to people who had a differing opinion.

Maybe the reason we quit showing any respect towards the leader of our country is because we quit showing respect to one another.

We lost a bit of our decorum just for the sake of expressing our opinion.

We're right and that's all that matters-right?

Even if we are the only one who holds that belief.

Even if it alienates people we like or maybe even love.

We decide who we like, or dislike, based on their political leanings and judge them accordingly.

We have very few people trying to find a middle ground or what we have in common and instead, they focus on the things that cause a great divide between us.

Come next week, we will have a new president.

Part of our population may not like it, and part of our population will be happy.
But all of our population is people.

We make up this country and the communities in which we live; we are the ones who see each other every day - not the president.

We are the people who teach our children, who are police officers, EMT's and other emergency personnel, the people who doctor and heal us, and the people who grow the food we eat.

I asked my Granny once why she didn't get so upset over the presidential elections every four years.

"'Cause, I know better than to get worked up over such nonsense. It don't matter who's in the White House; I know who's on the throne and He's the one in control. No one else. And we the people gonna keep on being we the people because we don't know no different."

Her words, as unpolished as they were, gave me comfort and still do.

We - and when I say "we" I mean all of us - are made of a hardy stock, have preserved tremendous things and have pretty much been phoenixes rising from the ashes time and time again.

Yet, we fight with each other over who's going to be president?

Mother Teresa once said: "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."

And that's what we've done.

So come next week, the process of electing our next president will be done and maybe we can return to getting along.

Sudie Crouch is an award winning humor columnist and author of the novel, "The Dahlman Files: A Tony Dahlman Paranormal Mystery."