I will not write about the fourth of the July. the split in the country between the true patriots and the idealists. The ones filled with angry nostalgia for a country seemingly lost to them but never truly was. Or the ones teetering on a certain kind of despair that the dystopian worlds they secretly had a fetish for is coming to pass.

No, I will not write about them. Instead I will write about my son that left our home today with a kind of jittery confidence and arrogance to watch the fireworks at the beach but left in the middle of the day to do so. I will write instead of my daughter anxiously optimistic but terrified of becoming a young adult as she preps for college in the city at the tail end of summer. I will write of my wife as she joined me in the pool that was still too cold for her tastes at 86 degrees.

I will write on how I picked up three mike’s hard lemonades with the intent of downing them all but barely finished one. I will write instead of the dread I feel going back to work from the comfort of my gaming chair and not feel the slightest bit of guilt over it. I will write instead that my mother bought me the first edition paperback of kazantzakis’ report to greco and perhaps that was the most thoughtful gift she had ever given me.

So, no. Not about the fourth. If my fiftieth was a day like any other, then so is this one.

Although the fireworks were kinda nice.