Happy 67th Independence Day Sri Lanka: An Ode

Happy 67th Independence Day Sri Lanka!If someone were to ask me what is the most impassioned and complicated relationship I have in my life – the answer is the one I share with my country.She is like a lover who hurts me time and time again, but whose inner core I know is capable of the purest love and so I refuse to depart.She is like a spoilt babe, whose stubbornness and tantrums that destroy lives I know is partly my fault because when she turns her face, kisses me and begs forgiveness instead of punishment – I yield.She is like the parent that by example sometimes fails to teach me important lessons about values and greed – but who has loved me, and nurtured me from the start.She is like the growing teenager that I chastise repeatedly but cannot bear to see others do the same. It doesn't matter to me in my blindness that they too were a part of her infancy and childhood, and that because they have new children in adulthood the relationship doesn't cease to exist. I fail to realize this and flare up when they chastise, forgetting that sometimes they too want what is best for her.She is more beautiful than any I have ever seen, she is my home, she is my identity and she knows I could never be happy without her.But I know that what she is, and what she will become is not in her hands – it is in ours. Because true, unselfish love means that you have to do what is right and not what is simply convenient.