Happy…?

I've had more people tell me “Happy Fourth of July” today than probably combined all of the other years of my life.

They kept wondering why it was making me laugh. And I tried to explain that it's not really a holiday that you say “Happy…” about. It just comes off sounding funny.

(And I understand that they were trying to be kind and welcoming and make sure that I feel like I'm at home. So nothing about this is about those friends who tried to wish me well.)

Their immediate reaction kept being, “Oh, don't you celebrate?”

And yes, I have, historically. When I was young, I wholeheartedly bought all of the American propaganda that I was ever fed. (It makes it hard for me to have conversations with people now as they regurgitate the same propaganda talking points that convinced me when I was 12, and to not feel like I'm talking to someone who is 12.)

This Fourth of July, I guess the thing that I've been the most thankful for was the freedom to leave the country.

Because when I think about America, the biggest thing on my mind is all of the friends who I left there. The biggest thing on my mind is the way that stepping off the plane from England into the States—even temporarily—was like picking back up a burden full of fear that I had grown accustomed to not having to wear anymore. That I had only learned when we moved to England that everybody didn't have to shoulder all the time. And here I was having to voluntarily step back in and pick it back up.

I keep thinking about how much safer I feel as a person, how much safer I feel about my family as a mom. I keep thinking about the 22 days of last year where the ability to walk was taken away from me, and I was on the phone trying to persuade someone to believe me long enough to be able to help me because of the way that America has decided to categorize “freedom” as a lack of social safety nets.

People keep telling me “Happy Fourth of July,” and I keep thinking—but over there, they're funding war crimes. They’re running prison camps. They’re burning down.

If I were still trying to live in the States I’d be out of a job. They voted to eliminate the support I provide. The children who I wake up and advocate for all day, every day, and the funding that keeps them fed and housed and taken care of is being taken away.

I love my friends here. They're trying to make sure that I feel at home. It was moving away from the country I was born in that felt like finally coming home.

I wish I could have taken everybody who wants to leave with me.

I wish that only the people who wanted this would be affected by it.

I wish that I could truly shake the dust off my feet as I stepped out through the door.

I keep thinking about a poem that I wrote when I was in high school. My high school experience wasn't great, but I couldn't stop caring. I wrote about flinging myself against the walls over and over and over as I tried to make a change. Because I could see so clearly the ideal in my head, and it was almost like if I wished hard enough, I could wish it into existence. If I worked hard enough, I could take it into my own two hands and shape it into something different.

I can only remember being that passionate about that school because of the things that I wrote during that time. As soon as I stepped out the doors, I was free. I didn't have to throw myself against the walls anymore. I was free.

My experience repeated itself when I went to university, and I wished again and again for something more, something more, something better. I felt like I could see the path to it, but no one would listen. I pounded my fists against walls until I left. I left dreaming of going back and making it better, but once I was out the door, I was free.

I'm struggling not to feel that way about the country that I left because there are people left inside who I love. It's hard not to feel like I'm finally free.

I keep thinking about a poem that somebody else wrote. They wrote it about voting, but it feels like it's about *anything* anymore, about caring, about anything.

There are children trapped inside. They're not the children I'm the parent of, but that's never stopped me from loving a child with all my heart before.

I don't know what else to say. It's not a happy Fourth of July, even if that was something that we said.