The Twelve Days: It Must Be Love

One of my favorite comments from when Boy#1 and the Lovely Girl became Facebook Official was left by a mutual friend from their days at a liberal arts college. That friend had worked with Boy#1 on a political campaign, and I don't remember the exact wording of the comment (and am too lazy to go back and look it up) but it was something like this:

"Somehow, I can't help thinking our side just lost one."

I laughed out loud.

For all their commonalities (they're both good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people like them) Boy#1 and Lovely Girl spring from political backgrounds that are distinctly different. Even though they attended the first Obama inauguration together (or at least slogged through the snow for blocks before they came to their senses and slogged back home to watch it on television), my son was in Washington to intern for a prominent Republican senator and LG was there working for a liberal political action group.

Now, One is voting blue and endorsing Obamacare. This causes his father a great deal of chagrin, but I am not at all concerned by this shift to the left. In fact, as a former Peace Corps volunteer, I think it's probably good for him--everyone needs a cross-cultural experience.

And, as a friend pointed out when he heard that our Kansas boy was engaged to a DEMOCRAT, if you aren't liberal when you're young and broke, you don't have a heart; if you aren't a conservative when you're old and pay taxes, you don't have a brain.Boy#1 and Lovely Girl have both hearts and brains, and they've reached across the divide.

Maybe if we're going to back away from the financial cliff our elected representatives need to fall in love.