Posted by whiterabbit on July 3, 2003, at 13:43:04
In reply to Peeling back the covers, posted by Eddie Sylvano on July 3, 2003, at 10:14:14
To be perfectly honest, holidays have always been a pain in the a** for me. I have too many unpleasant memories associated with holidays - I wish I could shake them off like a wet dog and just start over with the proper attitude:
Holidays = celebration, relaxation, family, fun.
Maybe I could go for hypnosis to have this equation put in my head.Thanks for the memories, Mom. She made Christmas a holiday to dread as far back as I can remember.
Every year she would plan the perfect scenario
with frightening precision down to the smallest detail. There was no room for mishap or human error: if Mom wanted an old-fashioned, Norman Rockwell Christmas than by God, she had better get it. Growing up, the four of us became miserable as Christmas approached because the same thing would happen every year - no matter how hard we tried to behave in the manner she expected, we always screwed up. As the day progressed, her mood would darken and she became increasingly grim. We could feel the gathering storm and became frantic in our efforts to please her - nothing ever worked. By the end of the day she was always furious. The perfect Christmas had eluded her once again because we were spoiled and ungreatful little bastards who never appreciated the hard work she had devoted to making our day special - we had ruined everything, like always.
After yelling herself hoarse, she would run away from us in tears and for many days after that, she would slam doors and throw silverware and bang things together to let us know we had not been forgiven.Every single godforsaken Christmas, from the time we were small to the time we were old enough to run from that house screaming, every Christmas was the same. All four of us left home by the age of 17, thankful to escape with our sanity. (I didn't lose that until later.)
Some years later, in our 20s, my oldest brother was killed in a military air crash on his way home for Christmas. I still had a tree and presents every year for my son - I was just as determined to make it a genuinely happy day for him as my mother had been determined to create the illusion of a perfect holiday - but I did not
celebrate Christmas in my heart for many years. For me it was a day of mourning.Can't say I had much more luck with the other holidays, although I gave it the old college try.
Usually it seemed like the more effort and planning I put into it, the less I enjoyed the day...shades of Mom, without the horrid twist of yanking people around like puppets and loudly blaming them all for my disappointment. I tried to be a good mom and instill happy memories, and my son grew up to be a fine young man, my mother's only grandchild. I had no more children,
and my brothers and sister never wanted children.
Because, I think, just like holidays, childhood meant nothing but torment in our minds.So what now? My son is grown, my husband is leaving me and my mother is far away making someone else miserable. I had a wonderful aunt who loved holidays and our family revolved around her like moons circle a bright planet. She died a few years ago, much too early from cancer - it seemed like some dreadful cosmic joke, picking off the one member of our family who kept us all connected by her love and kindness. Once she was gone, the rest of us fell away.
But back to the question - what to do with holidays now. Ignore them? Seek out friends and try to wring a little joy from the day? There IS a fair downtown, a big one, but summertime here is wretched with the kind of high humid heat that makes everything sticky and wilted. I've been to the fair many times in the past but never could fool myself into thinking I was having a good time. I'd feel sunburned and sweaty right away, and the overpriced draft beer would go flat and warm in its soggy paper cup. Has-been musical groups always play at the fair, guys that have no business jumping around in that heat at their age.
No, this is someone else's idea of a good time. Not mine.Still, it doesn't seem right to let the holidays go by, unnoticed and unremarked. In my pagan soul I know that such rituals are important in life, but not for the reasons I learned: that the OUTWARD appearance and the LOOK of things are all-important. (Thank God there was no Martha Stewart magazine when I was growing up - Mom would have just killed us outright instead of inching closer to it every year.)
So if APPEARANCE is not the important factor, then it's not REALLY essential to convey the impression that we are just having one rip-roaring time. I think this is what Wayne Dyer meant when he said, "You're not truly free UNTIL
you are free from the good opinion of others." (By this point in his talk you can't mistake his meaning for encouragement to do just as you please no matter who it hurts.)What he does mean is that there is no need, on the 4th of July, to stand around a barbecue grill
in the heat, swat at mosquitos and try not to look bored until somebody's kid puts his eye out with a sparkler. Unless you really want to, of course. Not wanting to do that doesn't make you a freak, no matter what your mother says. But if you don't go to the fair or the barbecue, then what?Why, you begin your own traditions. Elementary, Watson. Like breaking the destructive cycle of child abuse: you wipe the slate clean with your first baby and you start over. Although you're unfamiliar with such a creature as a good loving parent, you DO know exactly what NOT to do while raising this baby. And you build from there.
So here's a novel thought: what are MY ideas, my personal ideas for a pleasant way to spend my time during this 4th of July? I won't worry about the other holidays right now - just tomorrow. This will take some thinking, as that sort of thing has always been decided for me in some way or another. Obviously it's too late to make any sort of elaborate plan and I haven't got money right now anyway. Next year I'll do better, maybe save up for a trip. The last time I remember really enjoying myself on July 4th was, my God, 20 years ago. I was stationed in Jacksonville
and piled into the back of a pickup with some friends and some diving gear, and we made the long trip down to the Keys. It was the first time I went snorkling and I was enchanted by the coral reef. A seahorse floated across my line of vision, very close and unconcerned with me - I damn near drowned, I got so excited.Twenty years is too long, much too long. It's time to get creative, think of new things to do, start my own holiday traditions - prehaps the unpleasant ghosts of holidays past will fade, and I'll treasure only the good things that were.
I love you and miss you, Shayne and Aunt Judy.
poster:whiterabbit
thread:238945
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030626/msgs/238986.html