Thing #90: PURPLE.

This morning, I woke up to the news I had hoped to hear.  I, of course, seemed to be reading Facebook and Twitter posts from every angle possible.  And all of them seemed vaguely ANGRY.

I am hurt.  We forget that politicians are a small portion of the people who have a say in the nation's goings-on.  The people who truly make a difference are rarely the people in office.  We think only they must be held to a standard of change while we continue to bash one another in the same manner they modeled throughout the campaign season.

People, we are BETTER than this.  We must be, or my lack of faith in politicians should not lie in them but in US, the US who I thought could rise above political rhetoric, above shaming one another, above hate.

I recalled this map from 2004 this morning.  In 2004, I was saddened by the ultimate declaration of the defeat of the Democratic candidate, but I saw this map, and I was heartened.  We are not red and blue as the maps we saw last night or this morning indicate.

WE ARE PURPLE.

Today, I am grateful that I can remember that the line is so closely (and sometimes seemingly arbitrarily) drawn between Democrat and Republican that our nation turns purple when we consider percentages of the vote.

I pray that we can remember the purple.  I pray that I can continue to remember - regardless of the nasty social media posts - that we are not so different after all.