Decidedly unwedding related

Ok so this is something totally random, completely unwedding related, but the idea has been forming inside my head.

It finally came to me in a moment of understanding, like dawning, in my head. The Olympics are coming to a close. I've been watching a lot of the history channel. And to top it off, the last several books I've read involve immigrants. All of these independent activities bring me to my epiphany.

We should be proud to be Americans. Yes, we've all heard the saying a thousand times. Proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free, and I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me.

Yadda, yadda, yadda. Yes, we know the songs, we've worn the red, white and blue shirts on the 4th of July, we placed our hand over our hearts for the National Anthem. But have we ever really pondered what it means to be an American? Why we're Americans? How? When?

It's so much more than the Battle at Bunker Hill. I was driving back to work from lunch today listening to Middlesex when it struck me. All of us, each and every one of us, come from people who have had to fight to be here. Whether it be 400 years ago with the British and Spanish, 125 years ago with the Italians and Irish, 75 years ago with the Chinese/Asian/Korean/etc or 30 years ago. Whoever you come from, those people didn't just wake up one day and say hey, I want to be an American, pack their bags and hop a plane to the good ol USA.

They fought tooth and nail to get here. They gave up everything to start over. Would we be willing to do what our ancestors did in order to secure us the cushy lives that we've known since birth? Would we give it all up to move across the world into the great unknown with no more than a few cubic feet of storage space to store everything you need? Not even knowing where you will go once you land?

Honestly, I cannot say I would. Which makes me sad. My ancestors gave up everything to come to this land. My blood is their blood. What do I have in my life to truly be proud of? What have I accomplished that would make THEM proud? And the same can be said of most of my generation. We whine and complain because our cell phone bills are going up, or the price of gas is outrageous, or our commute is too long. Are we really the descendents of these freedom fighters? Do we really share their genetics?

Anyway, the whole point of this is our country was founded, created, built by people who risked it all to be here. I'd like to live up to their memory someday. I'm proud to be an American.