Dear America,
This Thanksgiving, I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately.
And truth be told, I’m sorry to say I think I have been taking you for granted during times like these. But I wanted you to know that from the day I laid my eyes on you, I knew you were incredibly unique. Swimming on your Atlantic shores as a child I looked up proudly at the American flags adorning the homes and boats. My team. My place. My HOME.
Seems we’ve been turning our backs on you recently. Turning from glory to grief. Bickering, divisions and separateness when we should be loving you and showing peace to the each other and the world. This year, I want nothing more than a world full of peace. I want the feeling spread to everyone lying in your arms the way I feel hiking in your mountains; strong, confident and like I can conquer the world.
I sit and wonder about your future as so many talk about breaking up with you and leaving, but you ARE my future. I see all my hopes, dreams and desires coming true with you despite the hardships. I, for one, will never abandon you when times get hard, just as you have not abandoned me, even through a pandemic.
Sometimes I feel my heart will burst open from the sorrow and the longing of recent events, but also the excitement when I think of your strength and perseverance. You, a born optimist, remembering how you took us all in. As I watch the wild stallions running through your hills of Northern New Mexico, I realize you are those stallions; bold, brave and wild.
And yes, you and I both know life is not always fair. But we will overcome because LOVE will see us through. Although I feel lost and alone so often, I will greet every stranger I meet with the same smile I give you every morning when I wake up. I will treat them with the same kindness, compassion and understanding that you have taught me to receive from you.
This is my way of maintaining the memory of the magic that is you.
Where we are going, time only knows. But, I will love you more today than yesterday, and will continue to fall in love with you over and over again until the day I die.
Signed,
Someone who thinks you’re beautiful.