Why I hate the 4th of July (long, girly rant)

The BBQ Pit
1

I used to love the Fourth. When I was first married, our first night in our new place in Georgia was the 4th, and we went to the fireworks…it was my first time on a military post and I didn’t even know where I was because we had just driven into town. Sitting in the dark together was romantic and exciting. Subsequent years were filled with kids loving every minute of the fireworks, and sharing their joy and amazement.

Then came 1994. Romance is gone, military life is gone, money is gone, and I’m working on the holiday. I ask my husband if he could please take the kids to see the fireworks while I finished laundry and packing for a trip we (not him, me and kids) were taking the next day. He whines and complains about parking, crowds, yadda yadda. I ask if he could just drop us off, come home and run the laundry, and pick us back up at a specific corner that we would walk to. Whines that traffic will be bad, it’ll be dark, yadda yadda. Big fight, I end up taking kids by myself, he doesn’t do laundry (goes to see the woman he’s been dating for two years…but I didn’t know this then) and I cry through the fireworks.

1995…we’ve been separated for almost a year, and I take kids to fireworks alone. A friend who was supposed to come sit with me never shows, and I cry through the fireworks.

1996…divorced for almost a year. I take the kids to fireworks, alone again. I see an old aquaintance, who had been through a much worse divorce than mine, walk by smiling with her new fella…she looks radiant, I’m so happy for her and despair of ever having that joy again. Cry through fireworks.

1997… I sit out on the balcony at my house and watch the fireworks two miles away, and cry.

1998…My brother’s 50th birthday party. No fireworks. I cry at home.

1999…take elderly mother to fireworks. She complains about the kids not sitting with us but running off to be with friends. We have to sit between all the parked cars because she doesn’t want to walk anywhere. I cry when I get home.

2000…party at my brother’s again, and we get gently shooed home so that they can go to the fireworks, alone, without grandma tagging along, and since I’m her ride…I cry at home later.

2001…We spend the evening kicking my daughter’s now ex-boyfriend out of the house, loading up his uncle’s truck with all his crap. We walk down to the corner two blocks away where the trees are thinner and peek at fireworks a mile away, and cry together, my daughter and I.

2002…Woo-woo, dating someone, but he’s not available to go to fireworks, so I walk down to the lake and watch the fireworks from a distance with total strangers, then walk home and cry myself to sleep.

2003…still dating, but I’m too chicken to ask him to go, so I don’t, and we don’t, and I go to bed early again and cry.

2004…Wimp no more, I ask him to go to the fireworks with me and he says yes!, but then he dumps me 5 days before (see thread in MPSIMS) and my daughter asks me to go with her and her fiance, but I’m tired from work and I sit out in the backyard and light sparklers and listen to the booms from three communities and my neighbors and I cry.

Ten years is enough. I’m tired of driving by houses where families are playing baseball and barbequing, and then bursting into tears at the sight. I’m tired of having to wait to be invited to my brother’s house for a cookout, or worse yet, finding out after the fact that they had a cookout and didn’t invite me because then they’d have to invite grandma, and I’d have to drive her, and leave early to boot.

Next year I’m not going to be the one working the holiday. Next year I’m going to have my own cookout. Or I will pack a basket and spend the day at the park like half the town does. Or I will take a drive out in the country. But I will not continue this crap. This year I was going to turn things around, tell the guy I’m crazy about him…and it all fell apart. No more. Next year, look out world, it’s Independence Day.

2

Good for you and good luck.

3

Good for you. Make it work for yourself.

And by the way, what is it about your brother, that he is so heartless and selfish as to not want mom around, just because she’s slow on her feet these days? That’s shitty.

I’ve had a similar problem with Christmas, ever since moving to Hooterville. Okay, the first few years in Hooterville weren’t so bad, because we had Billy with us (old family friend, kind of a surrogate father, very sentimental and traditional about Christmas), but he’s dead now. Now Christmas has gone to pot out here. The real Christmas is back in L.A., where the rest of the family is. Those of us out here are not that sentimental, and besides, I always had to work on Christmas anyway.

So, little by little, I’m giving up. It’s a little sad, and eventually I’d like to recapture some of it, but now it’s just another day. People around me get all upset when I tell them this, and try to infuse the “Christmas Spirit” into me, but it’s not going to work. I don’t feel terrible sadness, I don’t cry, I just have pulled away. There’s really nothing to be done about it. Just don’t feel the same way about it anymore.

I don’t recommend this approach, but it’s better than crying, I guess. I wish you the best in turning over this new leaf! I am sure it will be a great success!

4

You just described several of my valentine’s days and halloweens. I am not a huge 4th of July fan, I mean, they’re okay, and I like the fireworks, but the whole outdoor bbq thing has never made me wistful the way it seems to you.

But I can relate to the whole “here’s another holiday I love, and no one to share it with” feeling.

I used to adore halloween and going to costume parties with my boyfriend, mostly to see his reaction to my sexy or silly costume.

And I adore the romance of Valentine’s, and NO people I don’t need flowers, candy or all that rot, but it IS nice when a man makes an effort to say “I know this is a girl thing, so because you mean something special, I’m going to make a special effort JUST for you”.

The whole man/woman unrequited love thing, just sucks unbelievably. And I don’t care what optimistic horse hooey the TVzines try to sell us, all the good ones ARE taken!!!

Or most anyway.

Good luck, and your plan sounds like a good one.

5

Kittenblue, you do realize that July 4th has nothing to do with your love life, right? You want to feel blue on Valentine’s Day or Sweetest Day or New Year’s Eve and I’ll give you all kinds of sympathy. But July 4th? If you couldn’t muster up a single tear for anyone but yourself all these past Independence Days, then you have completely missed the point of the holiday.

July 4th is about honoring the country we are so privileged to live in. It is about recognizing the people who fought for the freedoms we Americans enjoy. You’re supposed to listen to fireworks and reflect on how it sounded to be in the midst of a battle, with real gunfire and cannons.

228 years ago, a group of men signed the Declaration of Independence. In helping to gain the freedom we still enjoy today, they also signed their own death warrants by formally becoming traitors to their King. Some of these men were hanged. Most lost their fortunes. Others returned home to find their families gone. They knew what they were risking yet they signed that history-altering document anyway. You still enjoy the fruits of their sacrifice. July 4th is about them.

Today hundreds of Americans sit in a thankless desert surrounded by hostile and reluctant hosts. They are there defending democracy so that others could enjoy the freedoms we Americans take for granted. July 4th is the one day where we should remind ourselves that our freedom shouldn’t be taken for granted, because it alludes so many.

To put it into perspective, today the family of Marine Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun gets to decide whether to view the purported videotape of their son being beheaded by Iraqi insurgents. He was in Iraq for you and for me. Next year, instead of weeping over your lackluster love life, perhaps you could shed a tear for him.

6

PunditLisa, it’s one thing to offer moral and emotional support, and another thing entirely to cover it with a helping of glurge. Even if this is the Pit, it’s still the Straight Dope.

7

Why does Barbara say, “Some signers were killed or injured because they took an active part in fighting the war for independence, some of them lost their wealth or their property because they used their assets to support the revolutionary cause, and some of them suffered losses simply because they (or their property) got in the way of a war that was being waged on American soil, but all of this was the result of the fortunes of war, not of their having signed a piece of paper,” while the piece in question clearly says, “Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.”

I think this is one of those times where she wrote from her editorial perch. She goes to great lengths to say again and again that these people did indeed risk very much and that they suffered greatly, but keeps making the rather irrelevant point that they were not the only ones who risked and suffered. Nowhere does the piece in question say that they were the only ones. I think that in this case, Barbara’s wailing and gnashing of her leftist teeth constitute the glurge.

Here are some more details about the fates of some of them.

http://rpc.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1998/founders.htm

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So our emotions and personal lives are supposed to go on hold just because you say they should, PunditLisa? Does it make you feel better to be the board’s “more patriotic than thou” person? It has to for you to be acting like an ass.

kittenblue, I applaud your resolve and hope that you can stay “independent”. Just don’t get too independent. That sucks too.

Yesterday was a day full of mixed blessings for me. I left my apartment and walked three miles up to South Mountain Reservation to watch a million different firework shows scattered across the NYC skyline. It was beautiful. I felt like a kid again.

But I couldn’t help get teary-eyed seeing all the families and couples around me. Everyone had someone’s hand to hold, someone to go “ooh, ahh” with. Someone to point out Staten Island’s fireworks from the Macy’s show on the East River. Me? I had no one. I forgot this once when I pointed absently to a lovely green explosion in the far off horizon. The guy standing next to me looked at me like I was a freak. And I felt like one because here I was, watching a freakin’ firework show all by myself.

Holidays tend to remind me about how alone I am, regardless of how hard I try to keep focused on the veterans or the baby Jesus or the Declaration of Independence. So I fully sympathize. Best wishes.

9

Olentzero, from your own Snopes link:

“None of this is to say that the signers of the Declaration of Independence were any less courageous because they suffered fates no worse than others who did not sign. They did take a huge risk in daring to put their names on a document that repudiated their government, and they had every reason to believe at the time that they might well be hanged for having done so.”

How exactly does your link negate my point?

I realize that corny patriotism is not nearly as cool as America bashing but I still think that one day a year we Americans should take the time to celebrate the gift we’ve been given. You, of course, are free to disagree.

10

PunditLisa, of course we all should remember what the Forth of July really means, but there’s no reason why kittenblue can’t also realize that her family celebrations of the Forth used to be fun, and now they suck. If she wants to spend next year remembering all the things you have mentioned, and also tries to make the day a little less sucky, then I think that’s a good thing.

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Excuse me for pointing out the painfully obvious, but isn’t that the POINT of Independence Day? To put our personal lives and problems aside to honor and celebrate our independence?

12

I spent yesterday puking and being miserable. Should I have put that aside to think about the beginnings of our country…especially to honoring the French, without whose help there wouldn’t BE an America?

Or could I just be allowed to be sick and miserable no matter the day without being anti-American? Please. You are being supercilious and insensitive in a thread that has nothing to do with patriotism vs. anti-Americanism, and it’s making you look like a jerk.

13

I don’t know if that’s the point or not but the white trash needle dick chucking fuckleheads in my neighborhood use it as an excuse to get drunk and fire off bottle rockets until the wee hours. Tomorrow morning at 7 o’clock I’ll be demolishing a kitchen and **I need my sleep![/B

kittenblue

Hang in there. I don’t need to be reminded to celebrate our independence, and I tend to avoid those 4th crowds like the plague. Maybe you’ll meet someone like me (only better looking and with fewer dogs.)

14

You too? You poor thing.

Yeah, guess I should be ashamed I didn’t “honor my country” by watching the fireworks in town.

PunditLisa, you seem to be missing that our country was, in fact, founded to provide its citizens all sorts of freedoms, including the right to celebrate how we see fit. And that for Americans, a huge part of any celebration is friends and family. It’s not unpatriotic at ALL for the OP to be mourning that part of her lost July 4th celebrations.

15

You may well be right, dear, but this thread isn’t exactly ABOUT July 4th. It is about how the thread’s initiator feels bad about being alone on holidays. Somehow, I don’t think kicking her in the ass is going to make her feel any better.

Horse pucky.

Today, hundreds of Americans sit in a thankless desert because our government, it its often-questionable wisdom, decided that it would be fun and/or profitable to put them there. They are not defending democracy. Iraq never had any democracy, and was in no position to threaten ours.

In short, PunditLisa, you have hijacked a thread about one person’s feelings in order to spout off about your own political beliefs. With all due respect, I can’t say you come across as someone I’d go to if I was feeling down, hon.

16

Whoa. How in the world does that diatribe remotely apply to kittenblue? From what I read, she’s wanted nothing more than to observe the Fourth in the most traditional, corny-patriotic way possible, celebrating it with friends and loved ones. You know, joyously, proudly and sharing all that. Your accusations of America-bashing are incredibly bizarre in this instance, Pundit.
How does wanting to share the emotion and meaning of a holiday devalue it in any way?
kittenblue, don’t worry that you’re the only one baffled by a “holiday jinx.” My best friend has had disasters happen on every single New Years’s Eve for the past decade or so. With me, it’s Christmas. For some reason it’s consistently turned out to be stressful, heartbreaking or just plain sad. Go figure. Just hang in there and do your best next year.

Veb

17

There’s a bit in the Declaration of Independence about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” kittenblue is unhappy. Upon reading that, you can either choose to say something to help make her happy, or you can try to hijack the thread to turn it into a completely unnecessary political debate and scold her for not being patriotic. Sheesh.

Someone has definitely missed the POINT.

18

At first I was going to respond to this thread condoling the OP and talking about my own sucky 4th of July, but I think that PunditLisa has made a brilliant post.

Like it or not, what she is talking about is the purpose of the holiday. On Thursday night, I came home from giving my sister a ride home from the hospital at 3:00 AM and NPR was doing a section where every reporter would read a couple of lines of the Declaration of Independence and then it would rotate to another reporter. In text, I had never realized what an eloquent document it was. I had neve realized how much it seemed to relate to my own life at that point.

No, there’s nothing patriotic about stuffing your face full of hot dogs and blowing a watermelon to hell. It’s nice to have time with family and friends, and celebration can help us to remember to think about the holiday, but it really isn’t the point. Nobody can say that we aren’t a nation that is at an important cross-roads right now concerning our role in the world, civil rights, the role of government in our lives, our safety, and how we, as citizens should respond to it.

Whatever you think of our situation right now, it sure as hell isn’t a time to throw the country onto autopilot. If there are only a few days of the year (election day, 4th of July, Memorial Day,…) to not obsess about our own unimportant little personal lives, this is one of them, and thanks to PunditLisa for bringing a little bit of perspective into this thread.

19

Eh, if all she wanted was to observe the 4th with friends and loved ones, she’d have plenty to be happy about. Most of the years she mentioned were filled with family. The point I got was that she was sad because there was no MAN. She got to spend the holidays with her mother, children (she and her daughter got to cry together over men), her brother, etc. The crying part seems to be over either the loss of her ex husband, not spending time with a current boyfriend, or having no man at all.

Although I fullly agree that she has the right to feel any way she chooses, I do think it sounds like she has a lot to be happy about with her own family and hope that she realizes that holidays can be special while being a >gasp< single person.

I truly hope your next fireworks show is one with tears of joy.

20

The point of Independence Day is whatever you want it to be. It’s just a freakin’ day. If you want to wave a flag and sing The Star Spangled Banner all day, go ahead. But don’t tell me how I should feel or how I should celebrate.

If it takes a single day to make you appreciate the DoI and the tears our forefathers cried and the amber waves of grain, then it’s you who needs a lesson in honoring.

(Without July 4th, we’d be a commonwealth like Australia. The horror!)

The DoI is a beautiful document, really. It makes this country what it is. But it didn’t free me or my ancestors from anything. In fact, it served to remind the world how hypocritical our country once was. But of course, I try keeping this little thought to myself. No sense in pissing on all the true patriots’ fun.

I honor Independence Day by being a good American. I pay taxes, don’t litter, and don’t break the laws. I don’t have to sit in my Patriot Prayer Closet and burn incense in the name of the Forefathers to celebrate Independence Day. It is not a religious holiday. We are still humans, with human problems, on this day.

Did the hostile and reluctant hosts ask them for this generous gift of democracy? If democracy is about freedom, how come the “hostile and reluctant” hosts don’t have the freedom to tell our guys to fuck off?

Aren’t we fighting a war so we can live our lives normally? How is kittenblue ruminating about the Iraqi War going to help the soldiers or the war?

If kittenblue was pining for a loved one fighting over there, would you tell her to keep focused on the “reason for the season”? Or would you have some damn compassion?