> be me > go to CVS for literally 5 minutes > get into uber > look over > husband is playing with cars > where’d you get those? > CVS > why??? > why not > this is my life

As we approach July 4th and America’s 250th anniversary, I have really been reflecting on how blessed I am to be a U.S. citizen. I was born in Siberia, Russia, to Ukrainian parents who moved there for four years to do missionary work. My mom has told us stories of having no food and living through some of the hardest years of their lives. People who have never lived under communism often speak about it like an idea on paper. It is not. communism is a system where the government controls the economy, property, opportunity, and often the lives of its people. It strips people of the freedom to build, own, create, speak freely, worship freely, and determine their own future. It does not reward ambition. It does not create opportunity. It makes people dependent on a system that decides what they are allowed to have. there was no version of “dream big and work hard” where we came from. There was survival. my family was selected through a lottery to move to the United States. We came here with one suitcase for a family of six. A church sponsored us and someone gifted us an old chevy. To us, that car may as well have been a Rolls-Royce. we grew up incredibly poor. I have only a handful of baby pictures and very little from those early years. When I started school, I knew zero English. I made friends by teaching girls how to braid hair and braiding everyone’s hair in class. But my parents worked relentlessly. They gave us opportunities they never had. They showed us what freedom actually looks like. the American dream was never that everything would be handed to you. It was that you could work hard, take responsibility for your life, build something of your own, create value, and become more than the circumstances you started in. that is why I respect people who work hard. People who build companies, create jobs, solve problems, take risks, and make an impact on the world. I know what it means to come from very little. and I know that the ability to dream, build, own, work, worship, speak, and create freely is not something to take for granted. I hope we never forget how rare that kind of freedom is. (sitting on the Chevy and wearing a dress I was gifted 🥲)