Fourth of Julys

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

A couple of hours ago, I realized that this is the first uneventful Fourth of July I've had. Today was a reminiscent day for me, and bittersweet memories came to me today.

Today was basically a really boring and unproductive day for me. I did not go anywhere, and I stayed in my room the whole day except when I ate lunch and dinner. Since I didn't have any plans, I planned to do homework, which I did not follow through, and for some reason, couldn't follow through. That is when memories came to me, memories of childhood and adulthood...

I grew up with my cousins who are all about my age, and we are more like best friends. My mom took care of all seven of us, ranging from ages 1 through 10ish. I can't believe my mom did that! My little sister was one, I was 5, and my cousins were 4, 5, 6, 10, and 11. I would never be able to take care of that many kids every single day! And remembering those days, we were all extremely hyper and excited kids whenever we saw each other. This was the case when we were all neighbors, and literally, my cousins lived right across the street from us. Within time, we all slowly move out of that neighborhood. My cousins were first to leave, and I was deeply saddened, when I found out that my cousin would not be in my class any more. We always did everything together, and I did have friends in elementary school, but me and my cousin played with each other more than with the other kids. So it was pretty hard when she left our school.

By this time, we were no longer neighbors, but we lived close enough to see each other often. So we did see them often on holidays, birthdays, etc. And during the summer when we were in middle school aged kids, they spent the whole summer in our house after my cousin was traumatized when a robber broke into her house while she was in there...I remember that summer...for some reason, we watched Ms. Congeniality every morning, until we memorized all the lines, and their dad brought us fast food breakfast food.

I'm getting off topic...sorry...and this is all probably disorganized...anyways, every fourth of july, we did see each other. We went to a park, and we would stay there the whole day, starting from like 8am, 'til night time, when we would see the fireworks. We always brought lots of things to do, like frisbies, water balloons, badminton sets, etc. We always were in the best area to see the fireworks because we were there since 8am. This day was also not only to celebrate the fourth, but also my grandma's birthday, whose birthday is on July 17th. The reason why this tradition of going to parks started is because of her. She loved doing outdoorsy things, and loved seeing us play in the sun, and run around freely like little maniac kids. And she bought us all of our toys for the day.

As we got older, they moved, I moved, everyone moved, until we were too far to do these things. Then, my grandma passed away, and for some reason, when she did, we never did these things anymore. First of all, we were all so far, so we never celebrated it together anymore. My family and I started celebrating it on our own, we would have a barbeque, and ice cream, and catch the fireworks, so it was still fun, but not as much fun as when I was younger.

I remember last year's fourth of July quite well, probably because that was the most emotional time for me, barely trying to comprehend what it meant to be undocumented. I remember it was one of the days where I did cry...I think I cried almost every day at that horrible stage, and was probably seriously depressed. Tears were just always pouring down, and I could not stop it. So, I cried that day, but managed to stop myself. Then I tried to be happy and successfully sucked it up, because my family was trying to celebrate. We swam, ate bbq, corn, rice, and they bought lots of ice cream. While they were swimming, I read a book called "Unnatural Causes", which is about Hurricane Katrina. It was a really good day for my sister and I. It was one of those rare occassions where we were actually laughing, and talking, making jokes, and taking pics with each other. At night, we went to the park to catch the fireworks. As we were watching, they played that song that starts off with "I'm Proud to be an American". I was near tears. Here I was, very emotionally unstable, trying to heal, and this song made me think about what we all frequently think about...What does it mean to be an American? Am I an American? I celebrate this holiday. I grew up in America. Am I not American? It was painful, thinkig about these questions for the first time. How do I explain the feeling...it felt like all my life, I have been childish and playful, which I have been, and here I was now, needing to accept the facts, and I saw that there was a choice. It feels like it was the first real adult decision I've ever made, in real life. Because now I was presented with a choice..either I do something about it, or not do something about it. I either follow all the values I've always believed in, like persevering and never giving up, or I let it go, and say I just can't. I'm glad I decided to strive, because I am, in many ways happier. I've learned a lot about myself, that I probably would never have learned if it were not for this challenge. I've answered my question about being an American, and can now say yes, I am an American, and there's no doubt about it. I've met a lot of people who keep inspiring me, and are the best people in the world. I've found who I could trust and could not. I have the best of friends. I love my family, and my parents, for giving me such a wonderful childhood. Childhood was fun. And sometimes, I feel really really happy because of these :)

Today, on this Fourth of July, I was not with my family. I was not able to go home, and my dad is also not home, and he will not come back home until November :( It made me sad that this was the first Independence Day we were all separated from each other.

I cannot fully explain why Fourth of Julys mean so much to me...I would have to make a more detailed blog post to make you understand certain things...there is just a lot of symbolism and irony in it for me, but I hope you got some essence of what I mean from this disorganized post.