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I Am Going To Miss America
But I Know She Won’t Miss Me
Now that it’s time to say goodbye, I have to confess that the connection I have resisted, resented and even denied over the years is still there.
If it weren’t, I would not recognize this feeling of melancholy and loss lingering around the outskirts of my soul. The connection I have with my country has endured through all of the drama and drek, over the decades that I have lived and the centuries that I have been fortunate enough to study in depth. And now it is time to say goodbye. Not because I am going anywhere, but because America, as I knew it or imagined it, has passed away.
I wish that connection had perished years ago with the accumulation of proof that the relationship is, and always has been, a one-way street. Translation: I know my country does not now, nor has ever, reciprocated the affections I grudgingly admit to having for it. Those feelings are real. If they weren’t, I would not be experiencing this moment like I am getting dressed and polished up to go to a departed grand-parent’s funeral.
Yes, this happened to be a crazy grand-parent. A frustrating grand-parent. A complicated and corrupt grand-parent. A grand-parent who flagrantly played favorites amongst the…
