(Photo courtesy of Adan Barrera)
Hearing fireworks the week before Fourth of July is nothing new. To be honest, it’s kind of expected. But while we are in the middle of a pandemic, those loud bangs are making me more anxious than ever.
All summer, I’ve heard fireworks go off from dusk to dawn. They seem to get closer and closer to my house every night.
One night, someone decided to light a firework literally on my driveway. The resulting shockwave was so powerful it managed to shake my house and set off all our car alarms. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. One of my dogs cried all night, her anxiety, like my own, getting the best of her.
When you couple quarantine with looting, police brutality and fireworks, then you truly have never had a better reason to be afraid of being outdoors.
During quarantine, your house is supposed to be the safest place you can be. That safety feels like it’s stripped away with every loud boom that occurs. My house doesn’t feel all that safe anymore, but, unfortunately, there’s nowhere I can go.