This is a personal note from Beto O'Rourke to his many supporters.
Amy is watching Last of the Mohicans in the other room with the kids. We started it last night after Ulysses' basketball game. Pizza, carrots, Mohicans and then early to bed.
This morning, before everyone got up, I went on a run with Artemis and then made breakfast. Scones, German pancakes, bacon, eggs, and some bread that Jim and Christine brought by last night with butter and jam on it. Some coffee from beans that a friend in Austin sent to us last week. It's not Whataburger, but...
After breakfast, we went on a hike in the Franklins with friends and dogs. Glorious morning in El Paso, crisp and clear, you can see for miles at the top of Crazy Cat.
Listening to the war cries and shots firing from the TV speaker in the other room, I'm smiling because we are all together again. Doing something -- just hanging out, just being around, just being -- that I haven't done in almost two years.
Been to all the kids' games over the last few days, made dinners at home, seen some friends and got to be outside, on the mountain and down at the river with Artemis.
I can hear Amy yelling in the other room "Don't watch this part! Don't watch it!"
And Henry saying "I'm watching it!" and laughing.
Already miss the road. Miss our team and the volunteers we'd see in every city, every town. Miss the energy and smiles and joy that I found all over Texas. Miss the purpose, the goal. Miss being part of something so much bigger than me or my life. Organized for a common cause and end. We were all together, really together. Never felt anything like that.
While there is loss, I also feel intense gratitude, waves of it every day. How was I so lucky to be part of something so amazing?
I can close my eyes and see so many faces and smiles. Hear the laughing and the cheering. I can see us hopeful and connecting as we shook one another's hand, looking at each other and nodding, knowing. All the stories that have been shared with me, all part of me. Every gift and kindness, every word of encouragement. Every bit of faith in what we had set ourselves to.
We were doing this for one another, doing this the right way, doing this for our country at what we all know to be a defining moment of truth.
The loss is bitter, and I don't know that I've been able to fully understand it. I try not to ask what I could have done differently because I don't know that there is an end to those questions or thoughts. There are a million different decisions I could have made, paths I could have taken, things I could have said or not said, said better or differently. I did my best, everyone did. For our democracy to work, for us to be able to continue to work together, it's important to be at peace with the outcome.
But what remains is this: I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have had the chance to do this with you. To bring power and joy to politics. People instead of PACs. Communities instead of corporations. Polls and consultants left to the wind and hopefully to the past. To have the confidence to move with the courage of our convictions. To open our hearts to one another. To not allow our differences (of party, of geography, of race or anything else) to divide us. To not know how it would end but to know that we had to give it everything.
I don't know how to fully make sense of what remains or to measure the impact we've had.
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