This July 4th felt a little icky.

I’ve been thinking about it, trying to nail it down. I know it began with the Election Season last fall and the toxic atmosphere online that caused me to take a step back from the news and finally be ready to quit Facebook.

My big kids are out of town staying with their aunt, and I have been home alone with the Littles. Granted, I was only alone with them for one day, Tuesday, since Monday was a travel day. Today, the Chaplain had off for the holiday and was here to help me out.

But Tuesday was the day I needed to recover from that traveling over the weekend and using a TON of social and emotional capital that I didn’t really have to spend. By the last day of the trip, I was feeling full of the meaning that comes from spending time with people with whom you have shared memories and a certain understanding.

I was also completely exhausted and had lost my voice.

And once we were home, my First Day Back was home alone with the Littles.

The Littles are great. They are cute, smart, and pretty independent for little people. They also depend heavily on the Bigs for entertainment. The Bigs help everyone to stay occupied with dance routines, made-up games, pretend play, and building elaborate toy cities lined with colored pencil roads.

Without the Bigs, the Littles become aimless ruffians. They can’t be pacified. They don’t eat enough at one meal to be satisfied until the next. Their activities interest them only briefly before they are fighting again, or looking for something else to do. And they moan and groan about missing their siblings.

Since I didn’t have a voice (it’s still not back), I couldn’t raise my voice. With fans running in every room as we make our way through the first real heat wave of summer, they probably couldn’t hear me even if my voice was at regular volume.

At times like this, I would usually rely on the Bigs to help me out.

Instead, I struggled through Tuesday and then crashed almost immediately when the Chaplain got home from work, which was later than usual due to a meeting.

I went upstairs to lay down for a minute with a book, and ended up falling asleep.

Today, the Chaplain was home. Amazingly, just our presence and the anticipation of Something Special happening later was enough to keep the Littles occupied while the Chaplain and I fought for dominion over the piles of stuff that build up and threaten to take over our house.

I didn’t finish everything I wanted to, but at the end of the day, things definitely look better than when we started.

The Something Special was a sprinkler, which we let run until the yard became a huge mud puddle. The Littles splashed until they were ready for dinner. They took a bath. We had corn on the cob and BBQ meat. We went for a family walk after dinner. It was so wonderful, they forgot to ask for dessert, and THAT is amazing.

They finished by watching the neighborhood fireworks from an upstairs bedroom window with the contagious excitement only Littles can muster.

The whole day, though, I didn’t have that feeling of collective pride that typically comes with this holiday. I’m sitting here on my laptop rather than sitting on the front stoop watching fireworks like I usually do after the kids are in bed.

The headlines have been disturbing. The face our nation is presenting to the world doesn’t seem representative of us. It’s like we’ve been done up like a clown. We are nodding in agreement with people who are completely at odds with our values. Moral relativity rules, which is great until someone else starts violating your morals.

Any other year, the ambivalence I’ve felt from time to time towards the U.S. was overcome by gratitude that I live here, and can basically do as I please. I can mostly have what I want, and eat what I want, and do what I want. Many of my fellow citizens have the same privilege.

But some of them don’t. And right now, it just feels like Privilege is ruling without any consideration for the rest of humanity. One way I can counteract this, that any of us can, is to Be Kind on a personal level more passionately and consistently than we ever have. We can show all the other humans we encounter that they matter, even if they disagree with us, piss us off, or disappoint us.

Many of us aren’t up to that task. I know I’m not most of the time. I can barely Be Kind to my family, let alone lift my head to look beyond our little circle.

Being an American seems a little difficult right now, even though in many ways, it’s pretty easy for me. The hardest thing I had to do today was put aside a passive aggressive text I received from someone I don’t even know. If you hadn’t guessed, I’m still working on that.

The opinions about replying to group texts range wide and long. I lean toward, don’t respond. I know how annoyed I get when there is a “Reply All” frenzy of texts. But I responded to one yesterday and a bitter and angry person wanted me to know my comment was unwelcome.

I don’t consider myself super tech savvy. Maybe there is an easy way to respond just to the sender in a way that it shows I’m responding to the group blast. But I don’t know that way, and I was low functioning yesterday. So I just responded, knowing my reply was going to the group. It was a brief message of appreciation.

But it wasn’t appreciated by one person, who angrily responded in a personal text to me with a “WHAT? WHO ARE YOU???!!!”

Ok, it wasn’t caps, but there was excessive punctuation. Given that my message was part of the group text, that person did not need to know who I was to know what I was responding to and let it go. It was obvious it was a one-off and I didn’t intend to have a public conversation with the sender.

There was so much accusation and anger in the response, though. It feels tied to the ambivalence I have about Independence Day this year. It feels tied to the pain I felt knowing a person who responds that way is clearly miserable. And yet even knowing that didn’t prevent that person from handing me a little helping of their misery with a side of insecurity.

I felt a little guilty for not wearing red, white, and blue today. I didn’t have a big conversation with my kids about which holiday it is, although I did briefly explain it to Four, who is the only one who asked. If there is an Independence Day test, I failed it. I didn’t feel the good vibes. I didn’t spread them. I just kept trying not to be bothered by the damn passive aggressive text.

But you know what? It bothered me. And I’m trying to be Ok with me even though I’m not where I want to be. I’m trying to stop fighting over whether my feelings are legit or not and just let myself feel them. Except I am TERRIBLE at that, so usually there is fighting.

I do feel hurt that someone was So Upset that I Replied To All that she had to let me know. I’m upset that it bothered me because I feel like it shouldn’t have. I feel insecure because in this case, the “group” is something I very much want to be a part of. Yet I don’t feel sure that I am accepted. So any hostility, I quickly take to heart.

I feel a little hostile towards America right now. I’m also feeling defensive about her. I’m feeling defensive as a white person who is privileged and needs a little time and space to become woke. I’m afraid to say the wrong thing. I don’t want to be an ass. I know some of the time, I will be anyway.

And it’s impossible to live in today’s culture, especially as a Christian, and not be offensive to anyone.

I don’t want to hear about your opinions about Reply All Texts. But if you’ve come to a good place with dealing with Passive Aggressiveness, accepting how you’re feeling even when you don’t like it, or how to accept our country for the thing she’s become – a beautiful place with a lot of brokenness and a leader who doesn’t make us look good? That, I would like to hear about.

Happy Fourth of July.