The federal government shut down is over – for now – after Congress finally voted this evening to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a U.S. default.

With the shutdown over, that means the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, the Carter Center and Chattahoochee River National Recreation Center will re-open.

Those who needed to renew or apply for a passport or get any kind of action on a government loan will also be able to move forward. And the thousands of federal employees, including roughly 6,000 employees at the Center for Disease Control headquarters, will be headed back to work.

Collin Kelley is the executive editor of Atlanta Intown, Georgia Voice, and the Rough Draft newsletter. He has been a journalist for nearly four decades and is also an award-winning poet and novelist.