All Countries Will Break Your Heart. Eventually.

July 4^th, 2020

I can make this statement because at least two of them broke mine. One that I chose myself. And one where I was born, that chose me. Just like people, countries have their faults. At 45, I have stopped looking for perfection. Right about now, I am happy with the little good I find in every day. For it is not little, most of the time.

I came to America with a head full of dreams, hoping and wishing more than anything I ever wished for in my life that I have reached a promised land where not much can go wrong if you truly want it to go right. 22 years later, I can say, just like I said about my first country 22 years ago: America has broken my heart.  For the first time in … I am not sure how long, or ever … I feel like America should be scolded and not celebrated today. She has a lot of learning still to do. The reasons are obvious to all the heart-minded and humanity-loving people, so I won’t belabor the point. This is meant to be a short post.

But despite all the anger I feel, despite all the grief I have grieved for the past year, despite all the pain I see unravelling every day, despite all the wrongs, I must love America. I love it like you must love a sister that stole your boyfriend. Or a father that lived only to make you happy and ensure you have everything, a father that taught you everything from tying your shoe to what kind of man you should allow to love you but then turns around and votes for Trump. I love it like you’d love a mother who’s dying of lung cancer and is still smoking like a freight-train, forcing you to watch the decay. I love it like you love a son who’s committed crimes but rescues kittens. 

Maybe it is wrong. This is a country I am talking about, not a person. Not my flesh-and-blood. But it is my home. It is the home I chose. I am not loving it from a sense of obligation. More from a sense of belonging. If any of this grief is her fault, it is as much as it is mine for choosing her. And where would I be without a home? Just like without a family, I would not know where I belong and who I am without one. I might not be high up and singing her praises today, but I have big hopes that one day it will live again up to the name she made around the globe for hundreds of years.

Whatever America is to you and however you choose to celebrate it today, or not, I hope you at least stop and ponder whether it is the perfect country you were taught it is, or if it can get better. And if you think it can, I hope we can all find it within our hearts to get her there.

And, also … make the most of today, however you spend it. God knows life is short. And that’s not at all   a debatable fact.

July 4, 1998 - my very first Independence Day celebration in Myrtle Beach, SC. You can't quite tell here, but I was crying. I was so moved that I was celebrating Independence Day in what I thought to be the greatest country in the world. I hope all of us can see that belief a reality in our lifetimes.