How Does One Feel Pride for A Country Steeped in Disappointment?
I just finished a movie about people who gave everything to a country that betrayed them. Tonight I watched a rocket go to the moon and cried anyway.
The French 75 felt like people I recognized. Not because I’ve ever thrown a bomb or freed anyone from a detention center. But because I know what it costs to believe in something that keeps failing you. The film didn’t answer the question it was asking. Neither can I.
Victor Glover. Christina Koch. Jeremy Hansen. Reid Wiseman. Around the moon and back. The first person of color. The first woman. The first non-American to travel beyond low Earth orbit. They are going farther than Apollo ever did — not in nostalgia, but forward, into something we haven’t named yet.
I don’t know what to do with tonight. The same country that can’t locate basic human decency put those four people on a rocket. I watched the launch and felt something crack open that I hadn’t given permission to open.
Maybe that’s what it means to love a place you can’t defend. You don’t get to choose when it moves you.
Our country is one of frustrations and victories we may not live long enough to see. Tonight felt like both.