Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Dear United States of America,
Foremost, you are my beautiful country. This weekend I stayed in my own lovely state of Florida and travelled to incredibly, scenic parts of Florida which I have never seen before. I saw so much diversity, in just this one state. Miles and miles of untouched wilderness, gorgeous coastlines, cities and small towns, all with their own flavors and charms and heritage. The diversity in the people matched these beautiful, unique places, and this is in just one small part of 1/50th of this incredible, vast, magnificent land.
USA, I love you. My grandfathers and my father served to keep you free. I married into a patriotic family. My father-in-law made a career in the army. My sister-in-law is one of the first women to graduate from West Point. My husband remembers to always put the flag out on every special day. He always remembers, and I love him for that loyalty and respect that he has always shown to you.
That being said, America, I am angry with you right now. So very angry. I love you and I will always love you. You are my country. But right now, I don’t like you. I don’t like you at all. I don’t like how divisive and angry you have become. I don’t like that you seem to have forgotten the very tenants that you were founded on, such as the separation of church and state. I don’t like how violent and dangerous you have become. America, you are behaving like a spoiled, arrogant, greedy brat. For the first time in my life, as an American woman, I can better empathize with how complicated patriotism and days like the Fourth of July must truly feel to our native, indigenous people and to our black citizens. My heart finally understands a little bit of what hurts these days must bring up to huge swaths of your own sacred citizens.
America, you are in an awkward stage, like an angry, petulant, stubborn, entitled, lazy teenager, hellbent on self-destructing. It’s not a path that you want to stay on. You have a lot of healing and growing and awakening to do, and I hope that you wise up to these facts before there is no turning back. Choose your leaders carefully and soulfully, so that the free world can respect and accept your own leadership once again. Find some humility. Find a path forward that you can be proud of, and that will preserve all of the ideals that so many of your own people gave their lives to keep.
Happy Birthday, America. Please do better. You are capable of being so much more. Dig deep and be what you are meant to be – a beacon of freedom and hope and prosperity and vision and dignity and integrity, for all people to revere.
May this birthday be the day that it all turns towards the light of better days ahead for you my beautiful, beloved country. I truly hope so. Make it so.