Megan Rapinoe won.
She won before the trophies and the adulation and the triumphant victory lap.
She won before ever standing with arms outstretched as her teammates exploded with combustible joy around her.
She won before sending yet another blinding meteor shot from her right foot, past another determined yet unprepared goaltender, into another massive web of netting.
She won before standing steely-eyed with her teammates at her back, while the world watched as she stared down her opponent and history.
She won before after taking the field for another World Cup Championship game.
Megan Rapinoe won because she showed us what we’re made of.
She reminded us what it looks like when a human being refuses to bow to unearned power.
She showed us the unflinching response to prejudice that good people are supposed to have.
She gave us a refresher course in what an authentic life looks like, in days when it can be easy to forget.
She reminded us that we don’t need to apologize for wanting a table where everyone has a place, and demanding it be built.
She let us know that leaders lead by their willingness to hold their convictions more tightly than the reception those convictions receive.
Over and over Megan Rapinoe faced adversaries.
She would not be moved.
She would not be shouted down.
She would not be tone policed into silence.
She refused to be bullied.
She persisted boldly.
She was undefeated.
Megan sent a message to every one of us, that we make the nation we wish to see.
We don’t wait for anyone to give it to us.
We don’t ask for permission to be free.
We define ourselves by the choices we make to speak or to be silent, to fight or relent, to stand or wither.
Megan Rapinoe is incapable of withering.
Good people always are.
America is.
The dividers don’t understand what Megan understands: America is greater than small people with big fears.
It is more than fireworks and parades, and one showy day of dog-and-pony patriotism.
It is a daily battle to make sure that “the idea of America,” as Bono has described it—does not die in the country of America.
It is in making sure that we will not be defined by the wall builders or the fear-peddlers or the war-mongers.
Our legacy will be made by the lovers and the helpers and the healers and the builders and the uniters and the damn-givers.
The results of the game, as heart-stirring as they were, were inconsequential. The scoreboard was irrelevant. That wasn’t where the true win was recorded.
It was recorded in real time, watching a group of powerful, talented, diverse women, who woke us up again to what happens when good people show up and stand up and do something beautiful together.
Megan Rapinoe won.
Her team of extraordinary women won.
My children won.
Exhausted, tired, grieving people won.
The bullied and the invisible won.
The real lovers of freedom won.
Liberty won.
America won.
And it all happened outside the field of play.
And what did happen there—well, that was magnificent.
