Like my unthankful Thanksgiving post last year, this is another unceremonial, unexpected post regarding the holidays, and what it means to be surrounded by people.
As I sit here twirling my top-heavy wedding band with a cooled off cup of tea, slowly losing the debate to exchange it for a Screwdriver, I find myself stewing over the events of the past day. And like all other times I am unable to bottle up, those thoughts lead to a frustrated reaction best left to words. Words put on paper rather than shouted to the world. I have a toddler sleeping in the room besides me, and if anyone wakes him, and I’ll do murder…
It’s Christmas. We’re supposed to be happy, joyful, and blessed. Our families have come in to visit, or we’re going to visit them. Either way, everyone gets together to have a memorable feast to help end another year while handing out gifts of love. To some, we go to church and hear the word of God, for it’s His (supposed) birth. To others, it’s the only time we get to see certain relatives.
For me, it’s misery.
If you’ve already read my Thanksgiving post from last year, I Give No Thanks, then you know that my family is rather disappointed in my very existence. I am nothing like them, so therefore on an entirely different plane than what they know. Sometimes, people on different planes can’t even begin to imagine how I think or function, and since they have the inability to do so, immediately take a disliking towards me. I am, after all, nothing like them. How dare I be so different!
This is the reason I have a huge disappointment in the human race. I look down on most people. As I said in my Thanksgiving post, I’m probably going to look down on you, too. So don’t take it personal, please. I’m not targeting you out of a group for any certain reason; I just don’t like people. Once I meet you, and we talk, thing’s may change for us. We could become fantastic friends, and eventually, you may become more family than my own blood! Or I could find your lack of basic knowledge severely detrimental to my very existence and wish you’d disappear from this world…
As I said, I don’t like most people. They’re not smart, they love drama, they’re cowards, lazy, disrespectful, and ungrateful. Believe it or not, all of which are things I was not taught about as a child. I taught myself in my 20s, which is why the holidays is a miserable time for me.
I like to think that is the culture differences of our religion that make us who we are, that a person raised in a Jewish household is vastly different than one raised by Christians. Although, I have met varying degrees of both that tell me this is not true, however sad it may be. What I’ve always thought was that God teaches His followers to be grateful of the things they have, to respect those around them, and to accept the things they cannot change though they can still work to make those things better. God’s followers know that the key to happiness lies within them.
As I’ve always thought this, I’ve also thought that Jewish people thought differently. They didn’t believe in the same God as Christians, after all. To them, the Messiah has yet to return, declaring Jesus Christ as nothing more than a fraud (among other unnecessary names). So because of this, they are not taught the same beliefs the Christians were taught regarding respect, gratefulness, and acceptance. I thought this was a religious ethic.
I was recently proven wrong.
Aside from distant family members that I know are Jewish (because I’m from a huge Jewish family), being in such a diverse nation allowed me to meet diverse people, which meant I have met other Jews. Some who were American Jews that only practiced, and some from Jerusalem who also spoke Hebrew (yet none that spoke Yiddish, dammit). Through these other Jews, I have learned that it is not a religious lesson to be acceptable, grateful, and respectful, but a learned trait given to us by our families.
So again I questioned, maybe it’s not religious but perhaps regional? Being in the south, I have learned a great number of “Southern Hospitality” traits, yet my family is pureblood Yankee from Massachusetts; could this have been the reason? Again, I was proven wrong. I mean, being educated by southern, Christian friends about acceptance, respect, and gratefulness, it’s no wonder I would think it’s a regional or religious ethic. Right? I mean, how would someone know they weren’t taught valuable life lessons by their own family until people from “better” families stepped in to say, “Whoa, this ain’t right, y’all!”
Needless to say, it’s pretty easy to see where I’m heading with this post. Pasting on a smile around this sort of mentality when mine has already “matured” is not an easy thing to accomplish for long periods of time. But for the sake of my toddler, and this being his first memorable holiday, I found myself capable of not only pasting on a smile, but holding back the tears of hurt. I may not have smiled very much when he wasn’t near, but for him, I damn well portrayed the happy mother. And dammit, it’d worked!
But now it’s midnight, I’m still dressed in my most festive Christmas outfit yet (black sneakers and black compression shorts to match the black shirt of Jack the Pumpkin King from The Nightmare Before Christmas–hey, it’s Christmas related!), and I’m writing this post with my now-removed top-heavy wedding band set off to the side so the irritation of having it constantly twirl while I’m typing doesn’t cause typos, munching on Ranch flavored rice cakes with my now-cold tea besides me, and the emotions I’ve kept bottled up all day have finally surfaced. The happy toddler is burned out after going a full thirteen-hours without stopping for naps, the hubby is at work, and I’ve finally got some silence to help reflect. Not like I need the silence, though. My mind hasn’t stopped moving since the first negative encounter. The quiet just helps me let it out without the risk of being seen in case any tears fall, and I also take that time to write it out.
Even if those writing’s don’t make a lick of sense.
So yes, this means you lovely readers get to be privy to my most deepest thoughts, though they may only lead you to confusion. Not all of my posts are about particular subjects; sometimes they’re about me, and those posts seldom make sense.
The morning was a blast. We had phenomenal video capturing our toddler’s first Christmas morning. Heck, even before that, he was ecstatic to find Mommy and Daddy come into his room together, as my husband is usually still asleep from working late shifts. Instead of his usual babbling and cooing at Mommy while pointing to all the things he knows she does in the morning, to be sure she doesn’t forget any of them as she has a tendency of doing (like turning off his manual night light), he starts screaming with glee and actually bouncing on his mattress, hollering for Daddy repetitively. That was Christmas morning for all three of us, the best Christmas morning ever! I wished I’d been able to predict his reaction, because I would have loved to get it captured on video. My son loves his Daddy more than anything; more than his Rugby balls, more than food, and more than bath time (all three of which are his favorites). The morning continued to please us with his reaction to presents, making it the most memorable holiday time for me ever.
And I do mean ever.
It even tops the happy Christmas memory I have of a time in my childhood where I realized that, as my sister and I (who never got/get along) trimmed the Christmas tree, throughout the entire day there was not single fight (which was so rare, it had actually made that moment the happiest in my entire life). I grew up around constant screaming, crying, and fighting; there was seldom a day that went by where people weren’t yelling at one another, threats weren’t made, feelings weren’t targeted, and emotional manipulation wasn’t being played. Not a day that went by where I didn’t lock myself away in the closet to stare up at the big, plain white wall and imagine something–anything–other than the miserable family I’d been born into. Not a day where I didn’t have to feel that the only protector I had was a child molester, and one I hadn’t even seen the true colors of until I’d hit my teens.
The happiest memory of my life had always been that one Christmas moment where my sister and I trimmed the tree, mom not around, when I realized that throughout the whole day, my sister and I had actually gotten along and there wasn’t a single fight in the household.
Yeah, how miserable does that sound to you?
But finally, I have a memory to replace it with. A memory forged in a home away from my childhood home, with a family I had created, filled with people who actually accept me for being me, respect me, and are grateful for everything even if they do not appreciate it. I just wish it could have continued to be like that the rest of the day…
Call me a miserable person if you want, I don’t care. I’ve been called worse by blood on a near-regular basis. I’m miserable to be around, I’m a downer, I never smile (a farce in and of itself), I’m an unhappy person, I don’t know how to be happy, I’m always too serious, I need to lighten up, I don’t know how to have fun, I’m too sensitive (as if obnoxious mannerisms were acceptable behavior?), and the most common phrase repeated to me when someone insults me, “Oh, they’re only joking!” Yeah, talk about abuse in the greatest form. It’s okay if they’re openly insulting you in any aspect, they’re only joking!
They’re always joking it seems… yet do it back, and suddenly it’s disrespectful. Take it and deal with it.
Now you’ve got an idea of where my “so be it” attitude comes from. Life sucks, but you gotta deal with it. Make the best of the cards you’re dealt. Ain’t no one going to get you off your ass to make it better; you gotta be the one to stand up and walk away. You can’t expect people help you. No one’s looking to help you without expecting a little something in return.
Life ain’t easy. Life will kick you in the balls repeatedly until you’re bending over in pain, and then it’s going to kick you in the ass so hard, it’ll cram itself up inside until you’re vomiting it out of your mouth.
Life isn’t pretty!
Life is Hell. It’s miserable. It’s having to wake up everyday, knowing you’re alone in a world of wolves who want nothing but to chomp at your feet, taking what it can out of you. If you want to change, then you got to make that change happen. It doesn’t matter what the route declares; if it leads you to happiness, and if you genuinely want and crave that happiness, then you will bleed from the soles of your feet as you walk that path. You will take the way to freedom, shouldering your courage, the willpower to live.
If you cannot do this, if you think you don’t have what it takes and are allowing this fear to hold you back, or even think that you don’t need to, then you’re a coward and will die in the grave you dug. You will stay where you are, miserable as you feel, wishing you had a better life and ungrateful of what’s around you. You will hold back everyone else from living their lives because you are afraid! You are the miserable person, the one causing grief and turmoil in someone’s life. You are the wretched existence of human waste because you cannot fathom God’s will. No matter your religion, you cannot take the Serenity Prayer to heart because you lack the spine to do so! The Serenity Prayer that reads as such:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Following this doesn’t make you a religious person. Praying to God doesn’t make you a religious person. Hell, even attending church doesn’t make you a religious person! To be religious, you have to fully commit to God and follow His teachings, practice on a regular basis however you deem worthy, and feel his spirit inside you. There are DOZENS of people who claim to be Christian yet are not, because they don’t feel Him deep down. If they did, they wouldn’t find themselves so lost, questioning why negative things happen to them, or seething with silent jealousy over someone’s better successes.
I shouldn’t have to quote Nick Vujicic‘s speech, but I will:
“Think of the three biggest discourages in your life. They aren’t your biggest discourages. You are.”
“Words are powerful. And when you hear those words and then your mind starts growing with these lies.”
“Words can only do so much. Hugs can do much more than words, but when hugs can’t do anything, that’s where faith kicks in.”
So now I’ve probably got all of you wondering, “Why did you keep on going then?” Well, that’s a very good question to ponder. I mean, after my Thanksgiving post and this one, you have a pretty good understanding of how spectacular a childhood I’ve had. I grew up in such an abused state, beaten like a dog for having barked after being taught to bark, shell shocked at the thought of God actually allowing a child to be born into such a place, that by the time I’d reached my 20s, I’d become to convinced I wasn’t placed by God, but rather by Satan. I felt that not all children were God’s creation because if they were, He certainly wouldn’t want to place “His children” in such states, so I began to believe some were placed by the devil instead.
It took time–roughly, a minimum of seven years, to be exact–before I found myself discovering the answer to the question I’d posed to God all my life: He set me here to make me a better person. It took time because I had to run into all of the lessons leading up to that moment, and all of the people that had taught me those lessons. It took patience, a virtue very few people possess (and less often myself). But furthermore, it took a while for the right moment to appear, the moment when I’d start seeing the positive in all the negative. But that isn’t to say the negative doesn’t still hurt.
Which is why the holidays, specifically today, had hurt. This kick to the balls had left me quaking in the aftershocks of my beautiful morning, wishing I could turn back the clock to make this morning last even longer, making me wish I could wake up tomorrow and see it happen all over again.
Making me wish my son and husband weren’t the only ones giving me a reason to go on.
Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you had some wonderful memories from today.
Musings of a Wench 