I’m leaving tomorrow to spend a long, Independence Day weekend in LA with Chris. Yesterday, I read a post I made years ago on a message board. I’m standing athwart these two days rather symbolically on this Thursday evening.

That post, from 2007, was a bit of a kick in the teeth, since the person who wrote it was so fragile–something I don’t really consider myself to be. It was ten years into my marriage, a year and a half before my husband’s death. I know I spent a lot of years being afraid, and the post was dripping with fear, with something very close to despair.

I was married to a man I loved who was going to die. That death was in the future in 2007. My present, then, was just fearful and cringing.

My present now? Hopeful. The worst that could happen happened. All of my fears were real, and realized, and justified, but I still loved him despite all that. I, the most risk-averse person I know, still risked it.

The 4th of July is almost here, a day for celebrating taking a risk. A day when a bunch of dudes with bad hair decided that death isn’t the worst thing that can happen. But the post-911 world has a lot of Americans convinced that death is so terrifying that we should stamp out risk, curtail freedom, curtail independence, so that we can be that tiny bit safer.

But the world isn’t safe. Beloved 47-year-old men drop dead in their kitchens without deserving to die, and the same thing happens every minute around the world. Someone dies, despite being loved. Someone dies despite all of our fear of death, all of our planning and hiding.

I’m free. Oh, I’m not free of every fear. I still avoid unnecessary risks. But saying it’s okay to be afraid and to still try, still love, still let the world get in close–that’s freedom. Not another word for nothing left to lose, but another word for everything to gain.

Happy independence. Happy day. Don’t shoot off your butt with a bottle rocket.