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Fireworks through the trees
47 Years of Fireworks
Happy July 4th to all you U.S. Citizens!
Today is not an insignificant day, to be sure. As a child, it was about swimming and cousins, corn on the cob and hamburgers. It was about sparklers and sitting in the beds of trucks watching the fireworks.
As a teenager, I often stayed home from the fireworks. I didn’t like the loud sounds. They really set something off inside me and I had no idea why. I was “just sensitive”, a “big baby”, a “party pooper”. Yeah…maybe.
I’d sit at home, like any healthy introvert, and tune into PBS channel 39. I’d turn up the volume for the classical music played by the orchestra, but then turn it down for the fireworks. It was perfect for me; my music and pretty sparkly things on my own terms.
Only after I became a mother and my PTSD was fully in swing did the 4th become a non-thing for me. I enjoyed the family picnics and bought the kids sparklers for the evenings. But, I stopped going to the fireworks entirely. They went with my then-husband or my younger siblings and my parents. Easy.
Other than my oldest, they all loved the fireworks. He had hated the hair clippers and the vacuum as well. I cut his hair with scissors until he was almost 8 years old. It took me almost an entire Disney movie to do it…and…
