Saturday, November 30, 2013

Liberation!

After years of dancing on the line, swaying in indecision, the liberation began on 11/28/13 after an unprovoked attack. I will hereby no longer participate in events where imagined wrongs of the past loom large and where people feel the need to project their feelings of inadequacy and disempowerment onto me. I have allowed myself to enter situations for too long where I knew that slings and arrows meant for others would be flung at me by a disappointed, fearful, and downright mean person in my family.

No more.

Thanksgiving is a memory for me. I do not have to "celebrate" it any longer.  This *in no way* means that I'm not grateful for my life or the people I choose to be in my life. It does not mean that I don't find a quiet peace in thinking about all that I have and in expressing that gratitude. It means I don't have to be part of the dysfunctional and hypocritical posturing any more.  If we can't stand each other the rest of the year, I'm not sure why it is so important to spend forced hours together in a small space to pretend otherwise.

I feel liberated.



Thursday, November 28, 2013

Pentatonix Christmas Music - Outstanding





Breaking a Taboo

Thanksgiving is one of my least favorite holidays.  It is such a cultural taboo to admit that you don't like Thanksgiving in America - regardless of your reason.  My reasoning isn't as grand as thinking about the genocide of the Native American population, although it is something we should consider.  It isn't because I'm not grateful for my life or my family, friends, the goodness I have experienced.  To be honest, it should be my favorite holiday, in some ways, because we often celebrated Roby's birthday on Thanksgiving.  That part is good to me...

I'm not a big fan of most Thanksgiving food, so I spend a day smelling smells that aren't appealing, waiting for some food that we have to eat at a time when I'm not hungry. I'm in the mid-generation - the generation who doesn't have a place in the kitchen yet because the Moms are doing it. I'm the entertainment. But often, I am left to be victim to the more dysfunctional in the group. Or free child care.  I don't watch football and there is only so much televised parade watching a person can do.

I don't have a big family, so it had never been a holiday where people came from far and wide to visit and talk about old times. My father watched football, my mother cooked and my sister and I were left to our own devices for the most part.

I guess from this, it isn't easy to understand why Thanksgiving is my least favorite holiday, but it is.  I really hate it. I can't wait for it to be done. Every year I dread it.

So, into the fray I go. Wish me luck. Or Godspeed. Or survival. Just unscathed survival would be nice.



Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Happy Birthday, Mr. Starns

Roby would have been 47 years old today. I find it so bizarre to think about that, since he didn't even see the age of 30.  He would be amazed by technology and social media, ipods and tablets. He would love Survivor and Glee and all the music competition programs.

It's hard to imagine that he has been gone longer than I knew him. I miss him, still. It's like an ache in an arthritic limb or the ghost sensation that people talk about after a limb has been amputated - ever present, but manageable.

His worst fear was being forgotten. He is far from forgotten.



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