Day 207: It's at the Kids' Table That Bonds are Formed

Today was a fantastic day and I know I don’t say that very much, but that makes it so much more valuable. You grow up with your family and take them for granted, then you get older, move away, have families and sort of forget how much fun you had as kids together. Sometimes it takes a big, holiday family gathering, a silly game and some cocktails to bring you back to the days when you were young and your whole world revolved around the kids’ table. When I was a kid my favorite thing in the whole world was spending time with my cousins at my Aunt’s house. Now that I’m an adult, I’d have to say that one of my favorite things is spending time with my cousin’s at one of their houses.

I guess not all that much has changed after all. I don’t have to sit at the kids’ table anymore and I’m the one drinking the cocktails, but other than that, I’m still giggling and hanging on my cousins’ every word. No matter how old I get, the one thing that will never change is that feeling of excitement at pending family get togethers. I’ve had fun at weddings, funerals, bonfires, hospital visits, lakes and holiday celebrations with my extended family and tonight was no different. We all have our issues with family, but barring any traumatic circumstances, family always feels like home and brings you back to that innocent time of childhood.

We’ve put on some weight, experienced some heartbreak and had a few illnesses, but when I look at my cousins or Aunts and Uncles I remember them the way they were and that makes me feel like the carefree admiring kid I used to be. So on Christmas, here’s to Dr. Pepper flavored lip gloss, sitting in parked cars pretending we’re driving, basement bands playing on toy vacuums and brooms for guitars, fireworks at the lake and sneaking sips of adult beverages. I’m not a cheery, positive person, but nights like tonight I feel like the happy glow might never end. Of course it will and there will be more illnesses, heartbreaks and passings, but we’ll always have the memories of holiday celebrations past and the pictures of that awesome guitar solo on the broom. I love you Denise, Donna, Dana, Dani, Kara, Rachel, Sarah, Meg, Katie, Jim, Julie, Dee, Don, Cookie, Marshall and Lump. Thanks for the good times.

Happy Holidays.

Day 206: It's Not How You Celebrate, it's How it Makes You Feel

I am discovering that the holidays mean different things to different people and that is okay. For me, I celebrate Christmas, but not in the Christian sense of it which I know many people will take issue with, but oh well. It’s not just any way of celebrating it that makes it real for me, it has to be a very specific set of circumstances precipitated by childhood tradition. Over the years there have been Christmases in tropical locations, alone in the city, time spent with the in-laws and one or two I can’t remember. We all celebrate in different ways, but if you had to change your tradition would it still feel like Christmas to you (or whatever you celebrate)?

I love my in-laws. They have been generous and loving from the first day I met them, but they have a very small clan and do not put on a big, festive display at Christmas. It’s just sort of . . . well, a half-hearted tree, normal dinner and presents. Every year I have spent the holidays with them I feel like I missed it. That “it” being the excitement and joy that I remember growing up with at this time of year. There have been some truly memorable holidays including one spent in a beachfront cottage in the Caribbean, but without the chaos of my extended family and food enough to feed a small village, though it always seems to be just enough, it’s not Christmas.

So is this time of year more about the actual Christian, Jewish, Pagan, etc., ritual or your own personal ritual? Can it be Christmas without God or some magical baby? I think it can be and despite not participating in some religious tradition that just so happens to coincide with the ancient Pagan winter solstice (seriously, God people try to be at least a little original), Christmas is my favorite holiday. It is that one time of year when most of the world celebrates some major holiday at the same time. To me, that is the spirit of the season. We are all joyous and merry for some reason even if it is not exactly the same and I think that’s okay.

I don’t need you to be Jewish or Christian or even non-religious to share in glad tidings. Believe what you want, but when you smile at me and wish me a “Merry Christmas” and I say it back or perhaps Happy Holidays or Season’s Greetings instead, it is absolutely meant with the same generosity and merriment. I guess my point is that we do not need to share the same belief system to harbor the same feeling in our hearts. I am just as giving and happy without that baby in a barn thing and I don’t need a menorah, though they certainly are pretty. I’m not entirely sure what the Kwanzaa traditions are, but I’ve had a Festivus party and though the airing of grievances is one of my favorites I’m okay without it.

We talk a lot about the true spirit of Christmas and really just saying that is cutting off a third of the population. Not everyone celebrates Christmas. The true spirit of the holiday season is about celebrating however you want, yet maintaining that same sense of generosity and joy. You don’t need to be like everyone else to give back or share a smile. I will never find another tradition or group of people that evoke the same happiness as the 20-30 people we call family in Indiana, but that’s okay. I can still with you Season’s Greetings and mean it most sincerely.

Day 205: Need vs. Want

Tonight I asked the husband to write my blog for me. Hey, I was still going to type it up, I just wanted him to come up with the topic and dictate it to me. I swear some days my head just feels empty and on those days I need him to be the brain for both of us. Which is how I came to tonight’s blog topic. How much do we lean on our partner and at what point have you passed a mutually supportive relationship and entered one that has an unhealthy bias one way or the other? For that matter, if this is what is “normal” for you, would you even be able to realize there is an issue?

I think Jeff and I complement each other very well. He is brilliant, but I’m not too shabby myself in the smarts department so that’s compatible. The areas where we need more balance are our emotional and pragmatic sides. I am all emotion, in fact, I often compare myself to exposed nerves all raw and overly-sensitive. I act and react equally from an emotional place and while those instincts have served me well in many respects, sometimes my inability to control my emotional responses has gotten me into trouble. Jeff is more reserved and harder to reach in a way, it sometimes feels like my emotional depth rubs off a bit or at least draws him out when he otherwise would pull back.

The rational side is all him, however, and I lean on that a lot. Someone’s got to keep some sense of normalcy and home when I’m railing against the world or having some sort of emotional breakdown over the state of orphaned kittens. We balance one another and I think this is how a relationship is meant to work. I’ve been involved with my emotional counterpart and it’s all fireworks and no firefighting. Maybe this is why people always say opposites attract. I don’t know that they naturally attract, but I do believe that we each possess a certain self-preservation instinct that instinctively helps us recognize what we need in our lives. Still, it’s hard sometimes. There are days when I crave all fireworks and craziness, just as I know Jeff would love a day or two when I focus on things in a pragmatic and logical way, rather than going by my gut.

This is why relationships are hard work. We often want to indulge our natural senses, but that doesn’t mean it is what is best for us. How could two emotionally detached people live together without simply losing sight of their love altogether? Likewise, if it’s all passion and protest rallies, who pays the bills and makes sure someone has a steady paycheck? Like anything that works, relationships are about balance and sometimes putting your needs above your wants. Though, without a few irrational indulgences life would be boring. Sure, I need winter shoes with flat soles and practical water resistant material, but I’m going to buy the open-toed, ruffle front, cut out stilettos. Sometimes you need to surrender to your wants before you can see clear to what it is you actually need.

Day 204: We Could All Use a Temper Tantrum Now and Again

Children are exhausting. I spent this evening playing with my 4 ½ year-old niece who seems to have no end to her energy, creativity, and truth be told, annoyance factor. She’s cute, she’s smarter than I remembered and she is very determined to get her own way. She wants to play, but you must play the game she’s picked out and you must play it by her rules. Is this how we all started out and has it shaped the way we’ve learned to interact with the world?

On some level we are all children, stubbornly wanting things to go our way without compromise, but life doesn’t work that way once you reach the point where it is no longer acceptable to pick your nose in public. I suppose I may not have completely lost this streak, it is due to my unwavering desire to live my life on my terms that I constantly find myself running into walls or getting into trouble. There are repercussions when you are an adult, however, that do not exist for the child.

I am trying to figure out if we are better or worse off for losing this part of ourselves. On one hand, I think it is pretty obvious that we could never co-exist as a society without compromise and understanding, but at the same time maybe we’d have a better shot at reaching for the brass ring and not settling if we allowed ourselves to believe that we deserved, truly deserved, to have that which we wanted. We take no for an answer too much and often about those things that would benefit us to fight for. Where a child may not know any boundaries, as adults it sometimes seems like all we see are walls, cordoning us off from larger possibilities and herding us into expected paths.

Maybe what we all need once in a while is an old fashioned temper tantrum. We deserve to have our way once in a while and we must learn to distinguish those things that are valid and worth a fight. Being an adult is not solely about accepting responsibility and following the predetermined path. Sometimes we need to rock the boat, both for society’s sake and our own. Though I will add a personal note of caution and tell you that the constant boat rocking will get you nothing but seasick.

Day 203: I Smell a Cover-up and I Like it!

Maybe I’m just lazy. I’m not writing as diligently as I once was. Some days I don’t think about my blog at all and others I think about it, but do not feel that need to write. So maybe it’s laziness.. Then again, maybe it is the knowledge that I’ve written about and worked through a lot of the surface issues and what is left are the underlying causes of my unhappiness and discontent. I’ve heard the expression about acknowledging a problem being the first step and it’s left me wondering, “the first step toward what?”

I know I still have issues. Even now, I make choices that are consciously self-destructive. Happiness is a daunting prospect and one I’m neither sure how to get to or that I want. Like everyone I have good days, great days even, but at the root I see that I am capable of causing pain not just to others, but to myself. Should I finally begin to drag those darker issues to light I may not even like where they take me and I’m not sure I want to be all that healthy emotionally anyway.

To some degree it is our pain that keeps us honest. We are able to empathize because of what we have been through. We acknowledge and act to help the less fortunate because somewhere in us is the fear that a serious illness, job loss or one more kid could put us at risk as well. We judge in conversation, but do not go so far as to be unkind to those who have made damaging decisions because we too have been guilty. All of us walk the line together and in some ways it keeps us honest.

The point has arrived for me, that I need to begin looking beyond the superficial layers, the denial, the defensive sarcasm and see into the heart of who I am. I admit there is a problem. I keep making the same mistakes and retreating to try a new path and once again stumble at the same point. I do acknowledge it, but in all honesty, knowing I’ve screwed up and that I might screw up again is not the great motivator people assume it to be. Hiding is so much easier. Denial is a lot more comforting. I’m working on it, but I’m not quite ready to ditch the security blanket of ignorance yet. Maybe when I get to Day 303, we’ll have to wait and see.

Day 202: Living in the Silver Lining

Yesterday I forgot to write my blog. This is only the second time I have ever forgotten and the first time I rectified it as soon as I remember. Today, however, I woke up and almost immediately realized it and then decided I was fine with that. I've had a great weekend. I know I tend to be cynical and the fact that I do not have more great weekends is likely my own fault, but this one is especially nice and how lovely to just be happy, have fun and avoid all obligations. How often in life do we actually get to do that?

There are always obligations to deal with in life. We have careers, families, bills, stress, mess, and who knows what else on any given day. Every once in a while it is refreshing to just be and that is exactly what I got to do the last two days. Already it is starting to fade as I feel the nagging headache starting to make itself known, the neck and shoulder tension is building and the pressures of upcoming deadlines and financial obligations. Still, I am lingering in the glow of a stress free and relaxing weekend, hesitant to see it go, but aware that real life cannot be ignored or delayed any further. We always pay our dues eventually.

In less than 24 hours I will be at my in-laws sleeping on what may be the world's most uncomfortable bed in a house kept at a chilly 64 degrees and inhabited not just by well-meaning parents but two large, hyper dogs and a perpetually freaked out cat. I'm going to need to find a little inner peace to survive the week, but something tells me I will not again manage the kind of carefree days that allowed me to forget my blog again. Maybe this is what it means to believe that life does not give you more than you can handle. You live out some chaos and stress and then have a brief respite of relative harmony to refresh. The natural ebb and flow of life gave me something really good this weekend so for once, at least for now, I have no complaints. It's important to remember that even with the complex conditions affecting the world in not altogether positive ways, we can still find the silver lining and know how to enjoy it.