Happy (Non) Independence Day!

Contrary to popular belief, Independence Day does not have anything to do with freedom for my husband.

For my husband—dear man that he is—the only freedom he has, well, is none. You see, Independence Day is yet another time that I enforce one of the very many family traditions that my husband was lucky enough to marry into.

My family is huge on tradition. We are also just plain huge—my grandmother had five children who married and had 16 grandchildren; 13 of us so far have married, producing a combined total of 20 great-grandchildren. This may not seem unreasonably large, but the fact is that our family traditions tend to involve all of us in small spaces. By my count, that comes to more than 60 people getting together a minimum of twice a year for extended weekends in either my parents' home in Virginia or, over the Fourth of July weekend, at my grandfather's home on Conesus Lake in western New York. Specifically, in his 1/4 acre back yard. In tents.

Now, my husband was fully aware of this tradition before we married, but I think he may have felt that he was capable of avoiding it on occasion. He was wrong. Because he's a good man, he's stopped grumbling quite as much and has learned to just go with the flow (read: drink a lot). But that's okay, because over the Fourth, everyone drinks a lot, so he fits in just fine.

However, there are other areas in which he refuses to budge. And no, it's not the safety factor. , my husband is convinced that we will one day lose one of the children to drowning, and this weekend always seems like the most likely time for that happening. You see, my Grandfather's home sits 20 feet from the edge of Conesus Lake—one of the beautiful Finger Lakes. Combine a herd of children under the age of 10 and a slew of parents who all believe that "someone else is watching my child" as they are drinking alcohol, and someone is going to die. If not by water, then by fish hook. (In 20 years, we've only had one visit to the emergency room for fish hooks, so our odds are looking okay.)

For many years, my husband would stalk the edge of the lake, keeping a close eye on any child that came within a foot of the water, ready to swoop in before a foot could get wet (and, in my opinion, ruin their fun and the whole point of having a lake). This year, he decided his heart couldn't take the anxiety—and he couldn't risk having a heart attack over the course of the weekend, since no one was likely to notice after a rousing 8:30 a.m. game of beer pong. So he decided to subscribe to the family belief that if everyone was keeping a 60 percent eye on the children, the collective 60 percent attention spans would somehow manage to overlap and, therefore, ensure that each child was receiving 100 percent attention from a variety of parents. He has also become more flexible in regards to Tent City. Many years were spent trying to convince me that there was no shame in getting a hotel room close by. (There is. There most definitely is.) Now as long as he has an air mattress, he's fine. The fact that he has an iPad and a wireless connection makes a difference as well.

But he has put his foot down on one very specific area: going home. Now, my family is somewhat socialistic by nature. For example, we all are required to bring food, which is then thrown into the giant potluck meal. There is no "my food/ your food." (Although, please imagine my shock when I realized somewhere around a husband plus three kids that my own mother was no longer counting me in her "food for my family" count. What? I have to provide for MY family?)

We all are expected to help equally with preparation and cleanup (although, let's be honest—there are a few people who tend to take on the lion's share of the work, for which I am eternally grateful from my place in a lawn chair). We all sleep in tents...except for my parents, who have somehow managed to stake a claim on the pull-out couch for many years running—not sure how that happened. And we all contribute to the communal alcohol coolers. If you don't want to share your beer of choice, you had better hide your personal cooler in the deep dark recesses of your tent. Under something smelly. And don't let anyone see you exit your tent with a fresh beer, or the moment your back is turned, looting will begin.

When it comes to leaving the lake, I attempt to continue the socialistic "we make plans as a group" trend by saying things to my husband like, "But everyone else is staying, so we should too." And yes, I have been known to try to get my cousins, uncles and parents involved in these negotiations. (Psst, go tell JMahl we need to stay until tomorrow.) My husband won't budge. When it's time to go home, we're going home.

The main issue with this is that any day we leave, I see it as leaving a day (or two or three) early, while he sees me as trying to stay a day (or two or three) late. In the past, he's tried to lie about when he needs to go back to work ("We have to leave Monday, since I have to be at work Tuesday"). However, that tends to backfire when, come Tuesday morning, I roll out of bed to find him still in his underwear with a guilty...uh, yeah...I'm off for three more days...look on his face. That didn't go over well. So this year he was honest with me. We're leaving Tuesday.

He did make a potentially fatal error in judgement when he asked me to drive the first leg of the ride home, then fell asleep in the passenger seat. I can't say I didn't spend a significant amount of that time playing out various scenarios of him waking to find us at yet another family-filled destination (we've got a lot of family in New York...a lot of places to go), but I couldn't come up with any scenario that didn't end with my husband driving home to Maryland. While in theory it might not be a bad plan to be stranded at another lake house by myself (ah...me time!), in practice I couldn't figure out how to fit in a stop at the liquor store without waking him and giving away my whole plan.

So we made it home on his schedule, with all four children (and the dog) safe and accounted for. But in thinking back on the weekend, I realized some things about family and family traditions. Family both never changes and constantly changes. There are always additions to the family (new fiance, new baby), and yet it's still "our" family. There are new personalities as people grow, change, adapt; new friendships, like cousins that you have known for 32 years that you are finally just getting to know; and new expectations—yes, I brought lunch meat AND cereal this year.

But there's always a constant. There will always be at least one "discussion" over the best way to do something (too many engineers). There will always be rain at least once (it is New York). Someone will always subtly point out my mispronunciation of a common word (yes, I know it's ki-LO-meter, but my mouth refuses to say it that way). Someone will always give Kool-Aid to a child that should not have any sugar. And no one will get a full night's sleep. For four or five nights in a row. And it's always family.

It's family, it's tradition, it's proof that in the midst of life changes, personality differences, 8 to 12-hour drives, and tough times financially and personally, there is a reason to get together and be together and sleep within five feet of each other and not shower for four days.

In a time when you're more likely to "poke" each other on Facebook than to hug each other in Grandpa's backyard, it's important to reconnect physically. Because family is more important than anything else. Because Independence Day, for me, is less about celebrating my independence than it is about celebrating my dependence on the love, acceptance and tradition of family.

And so what if my husband made me leave a day early? Thanksgiving is only four months away.