Given the holiday, I’ve started noticing more flags lining streets and hanging from front porches, waving proudly in the November wind. It made me wonder: what do merchants, county offices, and neighbors really think when they hang out the flag? Is it habit, heritage, hope? Or something else entirely?

They ripple in the breeze like echoes of a promise we once shared — unity, pride, belonging; a symbol meant to guide, to heal, to remind us we are resilient. But now, when I walk past them, I don’t feel comfort. I feel confusion. I feel loss.

I was born in America, but lately, I feel like I woke up in a foreign country. A country where the flag still waves, yet somehow it no longer feels like it’s waving for all of us. In my small, comfortable neighborhood, there’s an American flag hanging at almost every doorway. I used to see those flags as reminders that we are imperfect, but striving. Now, I find myself wondering what story each one is trying to tell.

For some, perhaps it’s still a symbol of sacrifice and freedom. For others, maybe it’s a statement, a stance, a declaration of belonging to one vision of America over another. The colors are the same, but the meaning feels fractured, as if the stripes bear more weight than before, and the stars shine for fewer people.

Sometimes I wonder if the America I thought I knew was ever really there. Maybe it was an illusion we all agreed to believe in until the agreement broke. The language of freedom still fills the air, but the translation has shifted. The tone is sharper, the rhythm fractured, and I find myself searching for a melody that once felt like home.

There was a time when disagreement felt like strength. It was a sign that our democracy could stretch without breaking. Now, it feels brittle. The space between ideas has turned into a chasm, and the bridges that once carried conversation are collapsing under the weight of suspicion.

Truth used to be something we could point toward, even if we stood on opposite sides of it. Now it bends and splinters with every headline, reshaped to fit the comfort of our own convictions. We no longer ask what is right; we ask who is right.

And yet, the flag still waves. Maybe that’s the quiet reminder we need most this Veterans Day. Not that we are united, but that we could be again. It waves as an invitation to remember that unity, healing, and resilience are still possible if we have the courage to reach for them — together.