It Just Doesn't Matter

It doesn't matter, you know.

This laser-tipped focus everyone seems to have on what defines each of us.

It doesn't matter that I'm a Democrat  and you're a Republican. 

It doesn't matter that I'm liberal and you're conservative.

It doesn't matter what lifestyle I have or support or what lifestyle you choose to despise or accept. 

It doesn't matter that I drink coffee and you drink tea,

or that I see through scientific eyes

and you see through the eyes of Belief.

It doesn't matter.

And it's not worth making it matter.

It's not worth the energy of

Facebook rants

and blog tirades

and newspaper opinion pieces

that keep stepping over the lines

people draw in the sand.

What matters is that we're all  here.

We're breathing the same air,

drinking the same water that flows through the same cycle from continent to continent.

The water coming out of my Japanese faucet will eventually make it's way into your North American coffee or into that desert oasis or  through that faraway plastic hose.  

The air that you breathe in through your righteous nostrils is the same air that

I exhale through my questionable mouth. 

Long after the cursing and insults and hurt feelings have been hurled back and forth,

we're still family,

still neighbors,

still sharing this country

or this continent

or this planet.

Still stuck together.

So does it really matter what defines us?

We are all fantastically different,

from our eyelashes to our political views, 

each cell of mine distinctly different from each cell of yours.

In the end, all this arguing,

fighting,

bomb-tossing,

gun shooting

gleeful hate wallowing

just

doesn't 

matter.