The Home of the Brave

It's a prominent line in the United State's national anthem, "land of the free and home of the brave." In the country's early stages, it was a cry of hope, of promise. To fight for what was right, to fight for peace - hypocritical in itself - but a mantra for those who only had that one goal in mind; freedom. This home, we've found, extends much further than America. And it always had.

My freedom is a borrowed freedom, while others out there actively fight.

I sip from a glass of borrowed freedom, unable to relate but able to feel, to acknowledge, to worry - for those people are real people - humans, men and women alike who all deserve what every human deserves; love, happiness, family, friends, shelter, food, water, clothes on their backs and hope in their hearts. And yet, simple necessities, human needs, that should be provided already are being fought for - unfairly so.

And while I sit here, social media reflects these events from broken glass. Unable to sift through what is true, what is false, what is a cry for attention from a selfish - naive - sheltered content creator; and what is asking for help, legitimate help, donations, brothers and sisters to help stand and fight - for freedom. Freedom from a tyrant who cares for none outside his own unquenchable thirst for power. A power that has been and will always be poisoned.

I feel hopeless, wanting to relate, to fully understand, and to tell everyone "it'll be ok" and mean it with every fiber of my being. But, a woman in her mid-twenties, living in a world we live in now? I tell myself that daily, "it'll be ok" and still find it hard to believe. As every day passes, even with the uncertainty, I search for those donation links - I contribute what I can, and hope it'll help those who are fighting, who deserve freedom.

Sitting on my couch, warm in my apartment, only knowing life siping from this glass of borrowed freedom, lucky enough to just be born into this - I realize that this country I live in is a far cry than what it used to be, referring to a home of the brave. We fight each other, hate each other, divide ourselves from skin color to race, north and south, east and west. Who we love, what is deemed right with marriage, what's wrong with marriage. Terrified of the idea of even giving away our guns - of which we've had no use for them since the period of the Revolutionary and Civil War - but turning the blindest of eyes towards school shootings; to kids dying from guns. We are no "home of the brave", but a home of the divided, of the scared, of the paranoid. A company with the branding of a country. We've become a shortcoming to that title as we continue to add ice to our glass of borrowed freedom and bravado.

Instead, there are men and women out there fighting, protesting, smelling smoke, hearing constant gunfire, bombing, inhaling seemingly never-ending smoke and ash, all for a home; their home, their true home of the brave. A country whose strong in their own sense, people who have escaped and still look over their shoulder for the Big Brother just over the fence. Dystopian. What world do we live in now where we can make real-event and live-time references to dystopian ideas? It's insane, it's outrageous but that's reality.

So now, as tension rises, as the future - as tomorrow - becomes more and more uncertain, hope can become the greatest weapon; the greatest reason to fight for freedom. The hope that these people will be free, will be hopeful of something greater - something they truly deserve. Even as we're a world that can divide ourselves, we are also immensely capable of coming together, of humanity coming together for those who deserve one of the most basic but most important aspects of life. For Ukrainians, and for other suppressed communities who seesaw back and forwards between a promised freedom that should already be theirs - we stand alongside you.