The Fourth of July.

The one day each year when Americans willingly stand outside in 94-degree humidity holding a paper plate, a can of warm beer and call it fun.

We celebrate freedom by sitting in traffic for three hours to reach a beach crammed with Coppertone bathers.

This year feels a little different.

The economy has turned grocery shopping into a math problem.

Eggs require financing.

A tank of gas feels like a luxury purchase.

The stock market has all the emotional stability of a toddler who missed a nap.

And politically?

Let’s just say Thanksgiving dinner now requires protective gear.

Half the country thinks the other half has lost its mind.

The other half agrees.

Yet somehow, on the Fourth of July, we all end up in the same place.

Watching fireworks, crowded on the beach, attending a baseball game, sitting in folding chairs watching hometown parades.

Complaining about parking.

Arguing over whether the burgers are done.

Pretending we know the words to the national anthem.

There is something reassuring about that.because beneath all the noise, most of us want the same things.

We want our families healthy.

Our dogs to stop eating things that require emergency veterinary care.

Our knees to cooperate.

Affordable groceries.

Reliable Wi-Fi.

Kindness.

Neighbors who don’t operate a leaf blower at dawn.

These are not radical goals.

They are the American Dream with lower expectations.

The older I get, the less interested I am in winning arguments and the more interested I am in keeping relationships.

Life is too short to spend it fighting with strangers on Facebook who still communicate primarily in the middle of the night from basement bedrooms.

America has always been a glorious mess.

We have argued over independence, civil rights, wars, music, hair length, skirt length, birthright, women’s rights and now apparently everything else.

Yet we keep showing up.

Raising families.

Building businesses.

Walking dogs.

Helping neighbors.

Starting over.

Believing tomorrow can be better.

That’s the real fireworks show.

Not the one in the sky.

The one happening every day across this wonderfully dysfunctional country.

So this Fourth of July, eat the hot dog.

Wave to the neighbor whose lawn sign raises your blood pressure.

Watch the fireworks.

Hug your family.

Pet your dog.

Remember that one of the great freedoms of being American is the ability to disagree and still share a picnic table.

If the world still feels a little crazy, take comfort in knowing that somewhere tonight a grill is on fire, someone forgot the potato salad, a dog is hiding under a bed, and America is carrying on exactly as it always has.

Happy Fourth and Happy 250th birthday. May we return to the democracy emblematic of the Red, White and Blue, permanently erasing all shades of gold and orange.🇺🇸