Tuesday, February 14, 2017

My Love Letter to the United States

Today is Valentine's Day - a day to celebrate true love. It seems my country deserves a lot of love right about now. None of us are having an easy time of it and isn't that exactly when we should remind ourselves why we choose to be in this relationship?

USA:

I love you because you push me. As soon as I get complacent and think there's no reason to work hard, you remind me that I owe it to myself, my family and complete strangers to dig deeper. You're not going to let me sit on my butt and watch the world go by.

I  love you because you are beautifully imperfect. You came into being from the minds of men and women who disagreed (often violently) and kept fighting with each other long after the Revolution was in our history books. You pushed your way onto this continent, sometimes destructively, and continued to redefine yourself. You know democracy is a journey, not a destination, so you're only strengthened by imperfection.

I love you because you survived the trauma of a civil war. I love the fact that, even when you try to solve problems, you sometimes make them worse. I love you because when you mess up, you tend to mess up dramatically. When the pendulum swings the other way and you bring justice forward, that justice is so dramatic that it's louder than any other voice in the room. Drama is painful but you always bring forth new growth after pain.

I love you because you are confusing and messy. I love you because you're home to so many different kinds of people I don't understand and will probably never understand. I love you because you're complicated and I love you because you sometimes make life terribly hard, then give me the opportunity to find wild success.

True love is never easy. A life surrounded by others who think just like me might be easy and (seemingly) peaceful, but it would be a boring, pointless existence.

I love my country, and I'll never give up on it.