I'm not celebrating July 4th this year.
My veteran husband asked me why.
There is no freedom here for too many of us
is what I told him.
It feels performative and false and I just can't do it.
He nodded and then said that it makes sense that I feel that way.
God love that man for his big heart
and ability to hold multiple things at once.
He gave several years of his life and his health for this country,
he makes sure to display the flag appropriately
and honors the service of many.
He also understands the harm that is being actively done
in this home of the brave, land of the free.
He's active in his resistance to this patriarchy
that poisons and threatens all of us and he knows
that I don't say things like this lightly.
I've never been shy about saying what I believe
or challenging authority when I feel it is trying to control,
manipulate or abuse.
I have a lot of gifts and I try and use them for US,
for me, for mine, for yours.
I've tried hard to build bridges and hold space
for multiple viewpoints.
I've got to tell ya'll though,
something in me has snapped recently.
I'm not able to hold the door open right now.
I'm not able to care about multiple view points.
And I'm over pretending to be unified
when so many believe that othering each other
is a move that is still acceptable.
Republicans, Christians, Immigrants,
Liberals, Whites, Blacks, Progressives, Fascists,
Millenials, ProLifers, Karens.
I can't have a conversation with anyone right now
that doesn't include at least four attempts to box people into
some little faceless group so people can ignore each other's humanity.
I'm tired of the raging of maniacs,
the complacency of those who feel safe and secure,
the witnesses who stand on the sidelines because
the issue isn't relevant to them and the infantalized adults
who insist it's too overwhelming to understand politics or economics
or any other basic community involvement.
Maybe it's caused by working on this book
and seeing the pervasive ways abuse was woven into my life
and how I was complicit in my own suffering for so long.
Maybe it's the casual way so many family members
wave around FUX News information like it's the gospel,
the pied piper leading them to the koolaid of all our doom.
Maybe it's the takeover of Jesus by a group of manic, abused
people hell bent on making sure the world knows how damned we all
are if we don't agree that they have the trade mark on what the Bible says.
Or it could be the silence of men who I considered my friends
when the Supreme Court decided I (and my daughter and my sisters)
don't have any value or autonomy over our own bodies without
their explicit noses being stuck where they don't belong.
There are so many things that could have tipped me over the edge
into what I am feeling these past few weeks and I can't find the specific moment
when I reached the limit.
It's not like I haven't known how this structure and scoiety works.
I haven't been asleep over here, wondering what all the fuss is about.
I have wept with each unnecessary murder at the hands of the police,
raged with each assinine or inane comment used to slander beautiful souls,
tried hard to lean in and refute or reframe the whataboutisms and
just generally tried to keep from throwing in the towel.
Somehow though, I've hit a point I've managed to avoid for years.
In the words of the Prophet Jason Petty
I don't hate America
I just demand she keep her promises.
And she has failed to do that for so long and in so many direct ways
that I cannot celebrate her birthday this year.
I have yet to decide if it's
a place I'll stay or just a pause while I regroup.
The generosity of women is something I've stopped trying to quantify
so I will refrain from making sweeping, broad statements that imply a finality to my feelings.
I may one day come back to thinking that I can be anything
other than mortified, embarassed and deeply hurt
by this country.
But that is not happening in the next few days.
The only gift I can give anyone right now is my real life experience
and permission to be over it.
Done with it.
Sick of it.
And underneath it all-terrified.
If you're feeling like me, you're not alone.
That's all I've got right now.
I'm aware that my stance on July 4th is unpopular
and I will get tons of DMs, personal messages and comments
that feel like it's a sin, a failure, or just plain awful
for me to express my lack of patriotic fervor right now.
How grateful I should be, how much better it is here
than anywhere else, how we need to hold the dream of what could
be in mind instead of seeing what is.
You are allowed to hold your opinion, quietly inside your own mind.
I am not asking for you to share it with me so don't.
If you are inclined to insist on forcing your view on me right now
I just need you to know
we will not be communicating for a good long while afterwards.
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