This was the first Fourth of July in six years that I did not cry.

A therapist once asked, somewhat perplexed, “Do you have lots of wonderful family memories tied to Eric on this holiday?”

And then just frowned and scribbled things in her notebook when I told her we weren’t that great at holidays and didn’t have any real firm traditions around many of them outside of Christmas.

“What sets you off?” she asked, her frown deepening.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have no idea. I don’t particularly care about the holiday one way or the other. And yet, I cry for different reasons every year.

Last night the kids and I were trying to piece together all the shit storms from the previous five Independence Days and we’re upset that we weren’t better at documenting:

• There was one where I cried because Jake wanted to head home early in an Uber. I didn’t cry because he wanted to leave, but because our area didn’t have reliable Uber service yet.

• There was one where no one wanted anything from the food trucks during the daytime part of the festival and that set me off? No one wants to eat a giant block of french fries? Excuse me while I sob into my ice cream cone!

• There was the time we left our usual spot for reasons none of us can recall, got stuck in various traffic and roadblocks, got shouted at by someone in a parking lot (I was already crying but this made it worse), and ended up watching the fireworks as I drove slowly up and down Highway 20 with tears splashing on the steering wheel.

So my plan for yesterday was to stay home. But my youngest really wanted to go to the fireworks part, but only if I wanted to go because he didn’t want to ruin my day. I told him I really didn’t care about going one way or the other, and was happy to make the effort. So he was like, okay, but only if you want to go. I don’t not want to go, so…

We can do this all day, y’all.

I told the two boys that we would not go early. We would not walk around in the baking sun and get grumpy with food trucks that do not offer gluten free options. We would not embark on a journey expecting to find any restaurants open (we have done this and I ended up crying outside a closed taco truck), so we would eat at home. We would leave at 8:30pm, and the trade off for baking sun, would be to sit in traffic. We would try our usual spot, and I had ONE SINGLE backup if the roads were already closed and we couldn’t get there. If the backup failed, we would return home, buy an overpriced box of fireworks from a stand, and go blow things up in our front yard.

The plan was agreed upon. Molly was outfitted in her thundershirt, ate her special treat with the special cheese and was allowed rare permission to hang out on my bed while we were gone.

And you guys? It… it went so smoothly.

Due to bonkers traffic, we did not make it to our regular spot, but after we were directed into a temporary and very crammed parking lot across from the Walmart, found a ~*secret path*~ that cut through several buildings and dumped us right along the Snake River. We plopped our chairs down and watched the absolutely bananas waste of millions of dollars exploding in the air, then used the same path back, which magically allowed us to avoid all traffic. Guys, we were home before 11pm.

We stood in the kitchen staring at each other until Ben finally asked, “Did we… did we break the curse?”

And reader, I think we did.

It probably goes without saying, but I have super mixed, super uncomfortable, and SUPER Debbie Downer feelings about the Fourth. None of which, I don’t think, ever contributed to my various meltdowns. It’s just that any little (or big) thing going wrong on this day turned into a grief tsunami, and maybe, hopefully that’s over now? Question mark?

I’m really not usually that sensitive, can go with the flow when plans don’t work out, and am super cool if one of the kids wants to peace out on a plan or isn’t feeling the vibes. Like, I’m not usually the mom who wants everyone to roll up and do the same thing at the same time and have a good time, dammit. But whatever, here we are.

Will the curse stay broken? WHO KNOWS. Our resident billionaire who puts on the show is getting kicked out of the Snake River Landing area next year due to developments going in. It’s not the first time the show has moved, but it’s an ENORMOUS show, and I don’t know where it’ll move to. Far away from that magical path, probably.