To Love a Life Not by Comparison
Note: I am posting this exactly two years after I wrote it on July 4, 2000. It is remarkable how the feelings are cyclical, even if circumstances have changed.
My lesson for the day: comparison and expectation breed resentment and unhappiness – a specific type of suffering To love this life, I must leave comparisons behind.
I’ve never really loved the 4th of July. Not because of the holiday that falls on it, but because of the expectation surrounding it. It falls halfway between Memorial Day and Labor Day – essentially just a reminder that summer will start flying by, and I better start making those summertime memories I see in television commercials: beautiful backyard barbeques with friends, trips to the beach, and camping under the stars to name a few.
Until this morning, I thought I was the only person who felt this way. My social media feed is full of amazing pics from the lake, sunsets, and fireworks every year, so I just assumed that I was the only person who wasn’t really feeling it.
We were having our morning coffee, trying to sort, and organize the vitamins, cleaning products, and dog shampoo (that seem to always be a mess under the bathroom sink) – just another thrilling day in married paradise – when my husband Tommy stated, “I’ve never really enjoyed 4th of July.” It came out of nowhere, but it was a masterclass in vulnerability.
I feel culturally driven to enjoy the 4th, perhaps compelled by military pomp and circumstance, Lee Greenwood, and apple pie. But my real-life experience has almost always failed to match the perfect B-roll American culture has rendered.
After going out on the limb, he spit out, “I mean the one we spent with our parents was probably my favorite*.”
He then said, “it’s meant to be this big celebration, but I usually just find it lonely.”
Me too – at least most of my adult life. I wondered why that was so, and after hours of contemplation and some meditation, this is an exhaustive list of my thoughts on the day:
I have many fond memories of spending the 4th of July with my family and their/our close friends, the Bellingtons. We would have dinner and set off fireworks in their yard. My parents were** creatures of habit, and years later, calling from whatever city I was in, I could always guess where they would be on the 4th. These were small gatherings but always memorable.
Like the pause at the apex of a rollercoaster hill, July 4th lacks all the luxury (so many days ahead) of Memorial Day and the cram-it-all-in excitement of Labor Day.
It’s hard to celebrate a country that hasn’t always wanted to celebrate you. And by celebrate, I mean to admit that I exist, “tolerate” me, and grant me the same rights as my fellow citizens.
Why do we celebrate “our” independence by buying and blowing up fireworks made in other countries?
Not everyone in our country is free yet, so why are we celebrating?
Our founding “fathers***” have very complex histories and, depending on your mindset, are hard to celebrate. They were real human beings, not mythical creatures, with human flaws.
Yet I think my most significant realization is that true “independence” comes with bouts of loneliness. And if this day is meant to celebrate independence, maybe I shouldn’t rely on others to celebrate it. FOMO is the opposite of autonomy – it is externalizing: focussing on other people, places, and things to create happiness. And if I’ve learned anything in the past few years, that kind of thinking only begets suffering.
The events of 2020 could have thrown gasoline on the flames of my annual summertime FOMO.**** Instead, our little family (Tommy, our pug Ethyl, and myself) walked a few blocks to the park. We sat under a tree and watched Lake Michigan for a few hours. No pomp. No grandiosity.
It was simple and beautiful. It was special because we hadn’t been able to do it for months. It was free of expectation – genuinely independent.
*This is sweet, and I know it is partially true. But this is the same man who celebrated the 4th of July sometime in the 90s by hanging upside from helicopter skids over the Mississippi River, dropping off, flying his parachute through the arch, and landing at the Fairgrounds while he was traveling as part of the GI Joe Skydiving team. He then watched Aretha Franklin sing on stage from the wings. It was super sweet to suggest that a night with my parents was near the top of the list.
**I am acutely aware this is the first time I have referred to my parents in the past tense, and it naturally feels very odd. My father left this plane on May 3rd, and while I have mentioned him many times in past tense, this is the first time that I realize that my parents, as a collective noun, are past tense. Saying this about them adds a note of finality to his “death.” Thank you to anyone who may read this and share this moment with me.
***I also think it is shortsighted to believe that all of the people who founded our country should be categorized with the same pronoun.
****I have edited to remove a statement that we are on the “back half of the course” with Covid-19. Looking back at this statement two years later, we were so far from being halfway done with the pandemic. Wow.