My Turn

My Turn 

By John R. Greenwood

I’ve heard enough. 

Now it’s my turn.

I try to remain neutral to a fault when it comes politics and religion. You go your way, I’ll go mine. This time I felt I must speak my piece, get it off my chest and wait for election day. 

I’m a simple man who lives between Right and Left worlds. My heart lives in the middle Left somewhere between common sense and compassionate human. I try to do more listening than talking or judging.

I’ve walked a lot of miles and I try to know what its like to do it in someone else’s shoes. They don’t often fit perfectly. There’s always more to the story. 

I have an American flag on my front porch, not as a reminder of how great America was but as a sign of how great I believe America is. My America is and always has been great. I don’t want to look back, I want to live forward. I’m nostalgic about the past but I’m more interested in enjoying what’s left of today and looking forward to what I’ll do tomorrow. 

I’ve watched and listened to as many viewpoints and opinions as I possibly can over the last several months and I’m in the same place I was in the beginning; I’m tired of being bullied and frightened in to thinking the sky is falling. I watched the horror movie that was the RNC until I couldn’t handle any more trembling. This past week I watched the DNC and I finally felt safe enough to crawl out from under the bed. 

There are no perfect scenarios or options in this life. You make the best decisions based on the best information you can assemble. There is one thing I am 100% sure of; I want to finish up this life of mine on a positive and optimistic note. After listening to Michelle, Bill, Barrack, and Khizer Khan, I knew I had to put something down on paper. I had to voice my opinion. I had to take a stand against fear. 

If you didn’t listen to both sides while idling in neutral this piece won’t change your mind. It’s not intended to anyway. If your biggest fear in life is more stringent gun control, you’ve already made up your mind. If the world gets so bad I need to keep my grandfather’s Winchester on my lap at night I don’t want to stick around anyway. 

Immigrants and minorities only have one choice and for those who are just looking for some peace and quiet, its clear that the optimistic bus is the one you want to get on. The seats might be a little torn, and the windows might need a little Windex, but from where I sit and from what I’ve heard this is the mode of travel I want to take.

Like it or not there is no pause or rewind button on this election. From what I’ve absorbed over the last few months I’ve determined that my odds of a better world are now, and have been in the hands of a woman. There have been two in particular who have looked out for me very well over the last six decades. One brought me into the world and the other will be holding my hand when I leave. I’m hoping there’s one more who’ll continue to look out for my best interest. 

This post is not meant to stir debate or solicit commentary. You can find plenty of that in tons of other places. My goal was to state my position so I can stop holding it in. I’ve got plenty of other things I’d like to talk about other than politics. 

I have an American Dream to continue living. It’s alive and doing well, but you have to open your eyes and your mind to be able to see it as clearly as I do. I guess it helps when you have two brand spanking new lens implants that replaced the cataracts, that my wonderful health care professionals identified and my wife’s health insurance plan paid for. 

Do you SEE what I’m saying? 

I hope so. 

Signed,

An American Dreamer