Christmas has come and gone, as it does. It was a fine Christmas. My oldest worked on Christmas Eve so we stayed up late for her to watch a Christmas Story by the fire. They headed to bed around 11 and we played Santa. My husband was not helping me stuff stockings and I was annoyed. "This is your show. Just tell me what to do and I'll do it." So I did, and he did.
The kids were up around 8 and we were still in bed, which is unusual for us. They unwrapped their gifts and were teenagers about it. Not too excited, just very chill. Except when my oldest opened a box. "Whoa! $700?!?!?!"
"No, it says $100. I should have used a different font." Disappointment.
We had breakfast and did a puzzle. We had my brother for dinner. It was very low-key which was perfect. I enjoy spending time with my brother. He is my OG brother. Growing up, I kind of felt like it was the two of us against the world. We are very close and I just adore him. It was a different kind of Christmas. Not because of covid. Just because the kids are older. It's not the same. It's not so much of a production anymore. It's not bad, just different.
Now, we look forward to New Years. I always enjoyed New Years. I love reflecting on the past year and making plans for the years to come. This year is different. I am ready to close the book. I do not want to reflect back. It's too painful.
Sometimes, I think, I can imagine what life could have been. I see myself, sitting in the bleachers, cheering for my daughter as she soars over the pole vault bar. I imagine myself downtown with my oldest, taking pictures of her in her prom dress. I imagine accepting potluck dishes at the band banquets and hugging my mom-friends. I imagine my youngest, walking out to the field in her class tee-shirt to celebrate the last day of eighth grade with the friends she has grown up with, one of the last celebrations of childhood before high school. I image the sun shining on my face as I walk through Athens. I imagine unpacking my daughter's dorm room and hugging her goodbye. I imagine going to Greenville for her recital and watching her on stage, playing her flute so sweetly. I imagine us being happy.
But these are just glimpses of things that cannot be. Fantasizes of a life that I wanted to live. I am grateful for so many things. My life, our health, and the fact that we've been employed through this pandemic. But our lives have been altered forever. We can never go back to BEFORE. That is hard, but that is life. I think I will mourn this time for my children forever. As time passes, it will get easier, the sting will be a little less but I will never be able to look back on this time in our lives fondly, which makes me a little sad.
But 2021 will be here. It is something new. I have no expectations this New Year. Maybe I'll travel, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll be happy, maybe I won't. Maybe the world will implode, maybe it won't. It doesn't matter anymore, really. Things will just happen the way they are supposed to and I will just keep on living and being like, "Wow. This is happening." This is my vibe from 2021 forward:
So, the long story short- Fuck this year. 2020 can suck a bag of dicks.
There is not much to report at my house. Christmas is coming. as it has always done. Again, with the children nearly grown it is anti-climatic. They will be working a lot this week. As it should be. I never understood the concept of being young and having fun. I think you should work hard when you are young and have the energy. Then have fun when you are older and have wisdom. I always just worked, worked, worked and went to school and was better off for it. Retail workers and food workers are stretched at the holidays...so be kind when you are out and about this week. You could be dealing with someone's child behind the register. :)
I do have a Christmas tale. One that involves the Kama Sutra. I just remembered it this week and it had me in stitches, just thinking about it. Let's go back 19 years. Okay, also, ewwwww. That makes me feel old.
It was December 20th, 2001. My boyfriend (it's weird to call him that) had been granted leave for Christmas. I hadn't seen him since August. I was getting so impatient. He was in AIT in South Carolina at the time. It's so strange that we wound up making South Carolina home.....
So he was taking a bus home with his roommate who was from Philadelphia. He was supposed to get home late on the 20th.
He called me that evening with bad news. They were in Washington DC and they had missed the last bus for the night. I was beside myself. It meant just another day without him, but it had already seemed like an eternity. I cried. I just wanted him to get home. He said he was going to call his parents and let them know.
His dad was like, "I'll come to Washington DC right now to get you." God Bless that man. I do miss him. It was a little under a 3 hour trip but he just dropped everything to go retrieve his son. Parents are the best. I spoke with him again, while he sat in the bus station waiting. He wouldn't be getting in until the middle of the night, but he said he would pick me up for school in the morning. My heart was encouraged again.
I barely slept that night, but I woke up early that morning to get ready. I put on this form-fitting navy blue 3/4 sleeve collared top, the skimpiest little paid mini-skirt, and my tan Candies platform mules. I didn't care that it was 20 degrees outside December in New Jersey. I was young, I was feelin' myself, I wanted to look smokin' for my man. Besides, you know what they say, a hoe never gets cold.
Oh, to be young again. I don't really miss at all. But I do wish I could get my hormones back. My ovaries used to be like Cardi B.
Now they are like Mimi from The Drew Carey Show.
She's like, "You haven't even had a baby in 15 years. I can't believe we're still doing this shit." and I'm like, "Girl, can you give me 15 more years because I'm not ready to grow hair on my chin and feel like someone lit me on fire." In 10 years, I'm changing this blog to Bad Menopause Award Blog.
Anyway, the point is - I was young, I was cute, I didn't have that weird mom-pouch apron belly thing going on, I had smooth skin and I was wearing a little mini-skirt cause I was going to see my mans for the first time in 4 months.
He called me and told me he was on the way. I stood at my living room window and waited. The minutes seemed like hours. My heartbeat out of my chest. I was insanely nervous. Then I saw, the white Saturn station wagon turn onto Mistletoe Lane. How poetic is that?
He pulled up in front of the house and stepped out of the car. I saw him for the first time in months. He did not look the same. I remember every detail about him. He was wearing wide-leg khakis and a long-sleeved navy blue shirt from the gap. He was at least 30 pounds lighter. His head was bald and he was wearing his glasses. He NEVER wore his glasses. I guess he was too cool to "see" in high school. LOL.
I ripped out of the house and ran to him. I threw my arms around him and gave him the biggest kiss. It was freezing cold outside but he was warm. There were middle schoolers walking to their bus stop, who gawked at us. I didn't care. He was home. I didn't want to let go of him. I just stood there with him, the frigid air stinging my legs because I had to wear that damn mini-skirt.
We got into the car and we just talked. He was different. He left as a boy and now he really was a man. So much had happened between when he had left and now - he had thrown a grenade, 09/11 had happened, he was a solider now...not just my little high school boyfriend. There was a seriousness about him that was new and fascinated me. I just wanted to kiss his neck.
We went to Wawa to grab breakfast. I had a Kozy Shack rice pudding and a coke from the fountain. I'm going to repeat that- for BREAKFAST, I had a rice pudding and a Coca-Cola. That was a normal day. If I had that for breakfast now, I would feel like garbage for 2 weeks. My kids eat like that and it drives me CRAZY. I'm can't believe I breastfed these kids for two years to watch them have vanilla lattes and Gushers for breakfast. They say you get it back 3 times. 🙄
He dropped me off at school and said he'd be in the rotunda to pick me up after. It was the last day of school before Christmas break. I FLOATED into school that day. I was so happy.
It was a good day. There were no assignments. Just movies and candy canes. The school day before Christmas break is a time-honored tradition for kids and it was good that year. We did a secret Santa for the literary magazine staff. I don't remember what I purchased, but I do remember the gift I received,
It was a smallish group and the girl who got me was an acquaintance. We were friendly, but not friends. We didn't hang out outside of school or talk about deep things. To be fair, I really never hung out with anyone. She handed me my gift with a smile. "I got you." It was obviously a book of some kind. I opened it up and......
It was The Complete Illustrated Kama Sutra, But it wasn't just a book. It was BIG. It was like a coffee table book. If I walked into someone's house and they had the Kama Sutra on the coffee table, I would question it. I'd be like, I think you invited us here for more than wine and Trivial Pursuit....Even the picture of the front cover was racy. The teacher just laughed and laughed. I didn't know what to say. "Thanks...." She explained further, "I came across it and I immediately thought of you."
At the time I wasn't insulted but now I'm like, Why the fuck did the Kama Sutra remind you of me? I was just a 17-year-old girl. I was new to the game. I feel like the Kama Sutra is not for people that are new to the game. It's for people that have been in the game for a while. Like, Sting, for instance.
I flipped through it. WHOA. It was....completely illustrated. I wondered things like, How does one hold that position? and How can he do that while wearing a hat? So here I am, in school, in possession of a LARGE book that does not fit in my bookbag, that is full of pornographic images. Great.
After that class, I clutched the book to my chest (the back only had text, thankfully) and went straight to my locker and put it in there. Thankfully it was softcover, so it fit. When I left school that afternoon, I walked out with it clutched to my chest again as I left the school so no one would see what it was.
My boyfriend was waiting in the rotunda. I got in the passenger's seat and leaned over to give him a kiss. "What's this he asked?" Motioning to the book. "A Christmas gift." He was intrigued. I flipped through the pages. "Wow." That's all he said. "Can I keep it at your house?" I asked.
"No," he replied. "If my parents find this, I am going to be grounded FOREVER."
Could you imagine finding the COMPLETE ILLUSTRATED Kama Sutra in your 17 year old's room? I don't even know what I would do. Probably vomit and back away really slowly.
When I got home, I buried it in the top shelf of my closet under a bunch of crap so it wouldn't see the light of day.
I did keep it though, even though I never really read it. It held some strange sentimental value for me. It actually moved with us many times. I didn't part with it until we moved to South Carolina. My oldest was two and I didn't want it in the house with the children. It just didn't seem right.
I only remember a handful of gifts I received in my lifetime, but one gift that I will never forget is the gift of the Complete Illustrated Kama Sutra. Memories.
I am wishing you and your family a wonderful, beautiful Christmas, and may the new year be better than the last. Like, it has to be, right?
Christmas will be here in less than 2 weeks. Our house is adorned with lights. The tree is trimmed and there is garland all through the house. The gifts have been purchased and wrapped, my cards have been sent -all the things are happening, but something is not quite right. It has been 5 years since any of my children believed in Santa Claus. That's half of a decade. The magic of the holidays with little ones seems long gone now.
I thought that the Christmas season would elicit something in me. I'm not sure what, exactly. Joy, excitement, nostalgia? But no, there is nothing at all. I hung Christmas ornaments - ornaments my children made when they were young, things that belonged to my grandparents - and there was nothing. Just memories that exist with no emotions tied to them. Christmas music that I used to love, that reminded me of joyful times....nothing. I don't have the Christmas spirit at all.
On the flip side, I am not sad. I literally feel nothing at all. Not anger, not sadness, not joy, not nostalgic, not excitement, not bored. I don't feel positively or negatively. I don't even feel emptiness. You would think that I would feel empty, if not anything else - but there is a heaviness that accompanies emptiness. I don't have an emptiness at all.
It's such a strange feeling. Like waking up and everything else in your house is gone. You're looking around thinking, "Oh shit! Wasn't there a couch here? Pictures hanging on the wall?"
I don't even have enough emotions to miss the fact that they are gone. The only reason that I even think it's a problem is because my logical brain tells me, This is probably not normal. You are maladjusted as f*ck.
But none of this is normal. Nothing about the world is normal right now. I think that my brain has finally gone into survival mode. It's just been too much stress and anguish. My brain has disassociated from everything.
I still am who I am. I care about other people, I want the best for the world, I am not bitter. But I don't FEEL anything about it. I know I care about people in the same way that I know the sky is blue. I have core truths. That just has to be good enough for now.
Otherwise, I am well. I continue to be a full-functioning human in spite of the large amount of duress I've been under. I work all the time. Things have been busy, I have lots of projects. My house is clean. I've been prioritizing self-care. I get massages every month, I meditate, I take walks, I carve out time to relax. If you take away the fact that I am dead inside, I would get a A+ on paper.
As the new year approaches, I am looking forward to nothing. It's so strange. Your whole life you have these normal expectations and now suddenly, they are gone. I always look forward to the new year. Goal setting, fresh beginnings, upcoming events.....but not now. Thankfully, the idea of moving is something to look forward to. I need that.
I have something to sustain me for the next 3 years, and hopefully, the pandemic will be over by then? I keep telling my husband that we should just go up there and buy a plot of land. I'm that way with vacations - just buy the plane tickets - then you HAVE to go.
I've been busy looking at house plans and fantasizing about life out in the woods. I really like this one:
I don't want a big house. I just want a porch and a tin roof. I feel the mountains calling me. I am ready to leave this suburban life behind me.
I think if I was able to feel anything at all, I would feel sad about it. Nostalgic, at least. My children grew up here. I have been thinking about that a lot. This pandemic has ruined a lot of things but I am eternally grateful that my children got to have a normal childhood.
Who would have thought that going to school, having friends, and attending birthday parties would be a luxury? My children had that. They will remember that their childhood was happy and normal. I hope that is something I can carry with me as we pick up the pieces and move on.
In the meantime, I will continue to do all the things that I am supposed to do - the only things that make sense to me. Getting up in the morning, making meals, working, surrounding myself with the people I love. I'll go see the lights, and bake cookies, and do all the Christmas things, and smile. I will fake it until I make it until things are normal again.
