At 82, my Mom moved last year from a house in Branson, Missouri to a 2-bedroom apartment at an Over-55 complex in Wylie, Texas outside of Dallas. This move has meant many things, including my impending need to break my vow to never return to the state in which I was raised.

I left Texas in 1987, moving just about as far away from the place as possible, Seattle, and nothing that has happened in either my life or Texas since has ever got me thinking of a return. I did go back in 2000 to visit my sister in Fort Worth, a trip fraught with dysfunction and I thought once I crossed back into New Mexico at the end of that trip that I’d rid myself of the place forever.

Then Mom moved to Wylie.

I’ve noticed that once you use the word “vow,” as in “I vow to never go to Texas again,” you’re pretty much promising yourself that your gonna end up doing that exact thing you vowed never to do. Vows, even marriage vows, tend to be one of those defiant emotional stances with zero substance backing them up. Like when you say you’re not going to eat that bag of tortilla chips you just bought at the grocery. “Duly noted, Scot,” Scot’s brain says, “you’ve made the grand pronouncement and your intentions are known. Now break into the goddamn bag of chips.” In the car. Before leaving the parking lot of the grocery store.

So next week I’m going to visit my mother in Wylie. I bring this up for two reasons: 1. To express how much I hate Texas; 2. To impress upon you the ardor of my defiant emotional stance, my vow, and that, at least for me, vows and ardor ultimately don’t mean much.

Which gets me to today.

One thing that would really help me overcome my crossing the New Mexico-Texas state line next week would be a thorough trouncing of every single Republican candidate running for office in the Lone Star State this election cycle. Like Talarico winning 71-29. That sort of thing. I realize how impossible anything close to that is possible, and that if even one statewide race goes against Texas Republicans today it’s a small miracle (only made possible by having the most deranged twit in American history be boss Republican), but it would very much make my venture there far more enjoyable. I’d like to look into the eyes of locals next week and not think that all of them, or at least a electoral majority, are racist, bigoted, hate-and-fear-filled Bubbas.

Having lived my first 25 years there, I’m understandably not optimistic on that score. Happy Mid-Term Election Day.