4 Minus 1
Dec 25, 2009 All Things Charli, All Things X, Current Events, Family, Out with the Old Wicked in with the New Wicked, Parenting, This Thing Called Marriage., Thoughts and Perceptions, Wicked Wisdoms
Merry Christmas! Ho! Ho! Ho! (Who you callin’ a HO!?)
As you all know, I am not all “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOITSCHRISTMASSSSSSSSSS!” this year. But, with the me being told about myself and all … I have done my part to fake it until I make it. Annnnnnnnnnd I made it to the finish line. Yay me! Today is the big day that everyone and their dysfunctional mother is talking about.
Christmas. No wait … still faking it … Christmas! (Better?!)
My crooked tree is shining with pretty lights and ornaments. There are presents under it all wrapped and shit. Family and friends (even some unexpected ones) are making my family of 4 minus 1 feel super duper special today. It feels really good to know that there are folks in your corner that genuinely give a shit. Genuine shit givers are few and far between as of late. It seems that when you are beyond struggling … all of those with the best fucking mouthpieces talking about how they will have your back if you ever need anything ever … are the ones that are the most full of shit … and they disappear without a trace …
You know what? FUCK those guys. If you are one of them who told me you would be there for my family and I haven’t heard shit from you … not even just to check in and see how things are going?! Don’t call me. Ever. Delete me from your life if I haven’t already deleted your selfish asses.
(I feel better.)
This holiday season has taught me a few really key things about life. Some things I already knew but needed a refresher on … either way the lesson was re-etched in my brain.
1) True friends don’t need to tell you that they will be there for you. They just are.
2) God only gives you what he knows you can handle. He never sets out to break you. You break yourself.
3) A true testament of strength is when you start at the bottom of the barrel and the next thing you know you find yourself standing on the outside of it, staring down into where you once were … wondering how in the fuck you just got out.
4) No one likes a braggart. There is a time and a place for being a big mouth. True adults know when to keep their fucking mouths shut.
5) Unconditional is unconditional. Either you love someone for all that they are or you don’t. The lesson is that in order to truly love a person, you absolutely have to accept everything about them that you cannot change. Or, stay true to a shallow, loveless relationship where you are constantly trying to mold them into something they can or never will be able to be.
Ya digg?
I miss my D today. As I sit here in a silent house, I am reminded of all of the little traditions he and I have made over the last 9 Christmases that we have spent together. Maybe that is why Idontwantit this year. Because there is a piece of the puzzle missing. We always wrap the Santa presents with different paper than all of the others after the kids crash out. There is a note from Santa, thanking them for the cookies. D eats the cookies because he is a muncher … and that is his favorite part. He always rocks a Santa Hat. All day.
Sometimes I made him keep it on … for … you know. Heh. Okay all of the time but whatever.
D makes me listen to fucking Christmas music.
He cooks. All day. And then he sleeps. Ha!
The reality is that he isn’t here and so my plan is to not sleep through the day like I really want to but was (again) told about myself that it is not okay to do that on Christmas! so I will instead do as best as I can to make sure that as many of these little traditions as possible are felt by my kids. If that means that I have a private moment where I completely freak out … then so be it. The most important part is that my kids will smile and laugh and hopefully … even for just a moment … forget that we as a family of 4 minus 1 are going through one of the hardest times in all of our lives.
If I can pull that off … than I really AM Wonder Woman.
Cheers to the Holiday’s … and if I haven’t mentioned it before … thank you all so much for any and all support that you have given over this time in my life. All of it has gotten me through … and kept me smiling. Know that.
Merry Christmas.
Tags: christmas, Family, Parenting, spirit, wonder woman
My Spiritual Void
Feb 26, 2009 Family, I Forgot to Tag, Parenting, Plunges, Thoughts and Perceptions
Last weekend, at my girlfriend’s 30th birthday party a stranger leaned in to me and whispered “To be Godless is to be mindless.” and walked away.
“Hm.” I thought to myself, while sipping my umpteenth vodka-cran. “What a Freuding ASSHOLE.”
I looked for him, but strangely enough he had disappeared. I am not even sure that I got a good enough look at his face to be able to really identify him from the next sap at the party. So there I stood, seething at the audacity of this unrequested, unsolicited comment from the unknown man at the private party. The room throbbed with great music and an air of celebration, yet I what pulsated through my veins was the fact that someone pushed their beliefs in my eardrum… without allowing me an opportunity to rebut.
How dare he assume that I was Godless!
Who is he to decide what it truly means to be Godfull?!
I have been thinking about this comment. It replays in my mind over and over again as I try to make sense as to why he decided to tell me, and not someone else. Did I look interested in his beliefs? Did I look like someone who would resonate spiritually with this statement?
Obviously… right? Cause here I sit 6 days later, absorbing each and every syllable.
I have come to the conclusion that I could have quite possibly been over thinking his statement. Even if I was not over thinking it, I have begun to process exactly why a cord struck when his breath hit the side of my face. I think it is because I have run from anything religious since I was a teenager. I am uneducated and ignorant on most things “Godly”. Other than the small stints of summer bible camp with my grandparents every summer, and an interest in AWANA when I was 13… I have no experience in organized faith. I do not draw support from any church, in fact the few times that I have gone to church in recent years, I have felt uncomfortable and out of place. My parents are not religious… in fact my mom was removed from the entire Mormon community for dating a black man. They both left the doors open for my brother and I to explore it for ourselves… but I never really did…
A few years ago, I posted a blog about my concerns internally that I was denying my kids (well, kiD at the time) the experience of church and faith and … that piece of life that I was not given. As I watch my kids grow up, I still wonder if I am a bad parent… one who is making a faith decision for them. How does one introduce it? If I am not sure what or WHO I believe in… how am I supposed to guide my kids in the right direction? When these questions arise, I feel like finding a big rock and crawling under it. I just prefer not to talk about anything that has to do with it, and it is 100% because of my lack of information.
And then there is Chrissa. Someone who is so important to me, someone who believes so deeply in her own faith. I am inspired by her, I admire her, but I am also jealous of her strength in this avenue. I have read several things that she has written where regardless of mention of faith… I could tell that it was drawn from something that she experienced within her church community. Maybe it isnt that I am jealous of her strength in her faith, maybe it is that she has been so lucky to find a sanctuary where she can go and just be Chrissa. I have yet to step foot into a place where I know that I belong. And I know that until I do… until I am able to fully release any and all biases, uncomfortable feelings and stigmas… I will feel this void within my spirit.
There is a void within my spirit.
I can run and hide from it until I take my last breath, but it will be there for as long as I try to deny it.
Has someone ever given you an unsolicited statement, or piece of advice that you may not have wanted… but it resonated anyway?
How did you process it?
What do you take from the statement “To be Godless is to be mindless?”
Tags: awana, celebration, church, faith, god, godless, mindless, party, spirit, unsolicited advice, void
