I'm Sorry

“Oh, you think you do, but you don’t know me!”

I heard you on the late news programs and again on the Sunday morning shows, and you speak so well You quote statistics, and your beautifully modulated voices describe me in detail, but one thing is missing. You don’t know me at all.

Of course, you know my age.

But that doesn’t give you the insight of what each year I have lived has taught me. The total number doesn’t include the many experiences, losses, opinions, prejudices, traumas and accolades I have accumulated in achieving that designation of Senior Citizen.

Often you quote my sex.

Indisputable, I grant you that. However, you never knew about a wonderful gay co-worker in Ohio, who became my best friend, and helped me during the illness of a difficult pregnancy. You couldn’t possibly understand my position on gay rights and marriage, because I am sorry, you don’t know me.

Your information on geographical location is correct.

It is accurate insofar as the amount of time I have lived at that address, but not how often I am in a home away from home with friends and family soaking up other opinions and viewpoints. No, this does not contribute to your knowledge of who I am.

Ah, yes, I agree my income bracket is an easily accessible bit of information. Certainly public knowledge, if you know where to look, I grant you that. But it doesn’t tell you how the assets were accumulated and/or diminished; the pain of an inheritance, or the loss of a loved one, that contribute to the balance sheet. Or perhaps, the joy of achievement when a sudden real estate sale is accomplished, and the financial disaster when an investment goes sour. No, my learned friend, the number is only part of my story.

Then, of course, information on my social security number is simplistic. However, it tells you little beyond the date of my birth, which you have already added into the equation giving me a category. Unfortunately, you don’t have a clue how many adventures in the workplace this number has shared with me. Good, and yes, bad, experiences that followed me from the day I was 14 and received that number, until I received my first Medicare card. It is only a piece of the puzzle, and we shared quite an interesting journey, I might add.

Race, that is simple. I am Caucasian, and I believe all lives matter. That wasn’t difficult for you to comprehend and tuck into my total profile. But it doesn’t tell you that my dearest friend throughout school was of another race, nor the gratitude I will always have to the Doctor in Caracas who saved my Husband’s life. Nor does it explain the reasons why I don’t believe, but know all lives mater.

As you sit in the well-lit television studio and speak with such assurance and predict how I will vote, what I believe, and what category I belong to, you don’t know me, my friend.

You cannot feel the pain I do when the words “Boots on the Ground” flow so easily from the mouths of politicians. I don’t see leather I see the limbs, the hearts and the souls of all our children, and I cringe as you easily speak the words and predict the numbers to be sent on another Mideast mission.

You cannot understand when I shake my head at the War on Women that has been constructed by ambitious candidates. You cannot comprehend the joy and happiness I have known from the men who touched my life, encouraged every enterprise and shared my few triumphs. No, don’t mention this War to me.

It is interesting to listen as you and your compatriots who poll and predict, categorize and speak with such amazing authority, and still you know me not.Because I am one of the voters who you cannot predict, nor poll, who you really don’t know, and very possibly may determine the results for the 2016 election. And truthfully, we prefer the anonymity.