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Making good on my Super Bowl promise: The Eagles won. Here's my pink hat. | Christine Flowers

When Tom Brady threw that last hapless pass into the waiting arms of no one, I lost sense of myself in much the same way that a dying person floats above her body.

On the left, Christine Flowers dons her pink protest hat, which she promised to wear if the Eagles won the Super Bowl. On the right, Nick Foles is interviewed after the Eagles victory.
On the left, Christine Flowers dons her pink protest hat, which she promised to wear if the Eagles won the Super Bowl. On the right, Nick Foles is interviewed after the Eagles victory.Read moreHandout / AP

The primal scream I launched on Sunday evening was a sound foreign to my body. It came from a place so deeply buried that it tasted of bitter acid, accumulated in the darkest part of my gut over a half century. It was a geyser of sound, feral and inhuman, and in its own way prayerful. My own Magnificat.

When Tom Brady threw that last hapless pass into the waiting arms of no one, I lost sense of myself in much the same way that a dying person floats above her body.

I was the one floating on Sunday night and it was beautiful. But I did not die, even though that sad part of me that never expected to see a Super Bowl evaporated into shocked particles of green and white. It's hard when you say that you only want to live long enough to see an Eagles Super Bowl win. And then they win. And then you regret staking your continued existence on a postseason football game.

So my scream was part shock, part joy, and part fear that my ticket on the mortality express train had just been punched.

But really, who cares? The Eagles won the Super Bowl and it brought us all together in a moment of such existential unity that it made me forget all about the ugliness of the past year and a half. Yes, I am a pink-trending-red person in a blue-trending-bluer city, but that doesn't matter.

Or didn't.

Just when I thought it was safe to go back on social media, I started seeing posts about how wrong it is for Eagles players to announce they wouldn't go to the White House if invited (they haven't been yet) or how wonderful it is that the Eagles generally respected the national anthem (yes, they did, and good for them) or how Black Lives Matter folks were all ticked off that white people can riot and we call that a celebration (unless you're the horse that got punched).

And all of the goodwill generated by Nick Foles and his improbable run for glory dissipated a little in the rancor that we insist on clinging to, even in the midst of celebration. It never ceases to amaze me how the desire to snipe and find fault transcends even the most glorious of events. It's like those foods our ancestors kept in those bomb shelters, filled with creepy preservatives and designed to outlast a nuclear holocaust. Your hair will be fried off of your scalp and you may not have lips, but, yeah, that can of peas is apocalypse-proof. And so, apparently, are our tribal loyalties.

To me, at this moment, the only tribal loyalty is to my team. There will be many other days to attack the people who don't agree with us. Is it too much to ask to set one of them aside for a joyful, nonpartisan bacchanal?

This is not to say that I believe we can completely put aside our political differences. Heck, who even wants to?

Politics are a reflection of our values, and if we hide them in pursuit of a sanitized version of reconciliation, that's fraudulent. I host a talk radio show where those differences make for some oftentimes brilliant conversation. Frankly, that whole "No Labels" movement makes me wince.

What are we without our labels? Like wrinkles and scars, green and white face paint and the expressions in our eyes, they are part of us.

But there is a time and a place for bickering, and it shouldn't be a millisecond after the team you have lived and died for wins the biggest prize there is.

That I even have to explain this to Philadelphians is ridiculous.

Some people laugh about the importance we give to sports. Others fume about the dangers inherent in football, or presumed racism that forces some players to bend a knee, or PC madness that compels the Cleveland Indians to erase decades of history because a cartoon character offends. They can't comprehend the pure joy of reaching that pinnacle after you've labored up the slope for 57 long and thankless years.

I pity them.

And I choose now to ignore them as they worry over who is insulting the president or who is hypersensitive to the racial politics of celebrations.

To quote Fanny Brice: "Don't Rain on My Parade."

Author's note: I do not welch on bets. I made a promise to wear a pink hat if we won the Super Bowl. Now burn this page.