Tonight, I heard someone ready to give up. She felt she wasn't being heard.
She is concerned about issues that may not affect all of us. So not everyone cares. Or listens.
Only so many hours in the day, right? So many pixels in the screen.
And there's nothing wrong with that. There really are only so many synapses to spare, especially in times when the glucose is in short supply.
But I want her, and everyone here, to hear and understand one thing:
Ben Franklin was right. We shall surely hang separately.
Got a beef? White folks'll never understand? Gun control wimps don't get it? Men suck? Gays getting all the attention? Atheists making fun?
My friends, my brothers and sisters, my FELLOWS,
We are all we've got.
This place, this party, this terribly creaky house, is us. It's all there is.
And it's what we make of it.
Do you really think Mitt Romney, the most reasonable Republican who could be sworn in as president of the United States in 2013, is going to care a whit about your reproductive freedom, your journey of discovery as a gay, lesbian, transgendered person, your library's funding running out or your union's getting nutted? Can you really tell me there's another home?
I am a partisan. I have chosen a side.
I don't understand every issue that those who've made the same choice face. I probably never will.
But I'm ready to listen. And learn. And grow.
Because I've chosen a side that says, "Us." And is willing to face the uncomfortable moments when we discover just how much "us" can mean.
I will not choose a side that points only to "them," no matter how strange and uncomfortable my choice may get.
Because I've learned, in this long and crazy life, you never know when "they" might turn out to be "me."
That's all I have to say about that.