The following is based on a true story.
An actual conversation between husband and me:
H: You don't have any poems about holidays, or cold / extreme hot days. There's an idea.
Me: Confused, why would I? I don't like holidays, and I love all weather, and I do write about it.
Just not in the context that he meant. I understood what he was saying.
Sensitivity Warning: I am not responsible for whatever feels you experience from this point forward. This is strictly based on my life's experiences that have brought us here today, with a dash of lived perspective. We don't have to agree to be friends.
So, here we are. The night before Thanksgiving and all through the house, feel the stress creeping in and the arguments are just getting heated.
Kidding.
Let the Holiday mixing of prescription meds and spirits begin!
Ok, joking again. Or am I?
The chaos and noise of families coming together to celebrate while working fulltime jobs, there are meals to cook, baking to do and in-laws who are due anytime now. Money is tight this time of year (as always).
And yet we go through the motions, year after year, complaint after complaint all in the name of tradition. Just to do it again for Christmas and New Years and all the holidays in between. Forced family time you say? The kids have to participate in a family event. The family grudges and drama all under one roof. With the people who started it all, The Parents.
That's right kids, I said it. Because I've been there. I've been you. I'm not so old that I don't remember my youth. Or 20s or 30s.... anyway, you get the idea.
And now I'm that parent, (early adulthood), so I have earned the right to say the holidays are overrated. I think they have become over commercialized, misrepresented, devalued and unappreciated. And this is why, I don't like holidays. As adults, it just stops being fun.
Think about that for a moment, as adults, it just stops being fun. But our parents did it and their parents before.
So why do we still do it? Because if we didn't, what would we do to preserve our time here on earth? I believe as a species we have lost the purpose of it all behind the smoke and mirrors of progression and "perceived" accepted societal behaviors that drive us further into the stages of evolution.
I believe holidays were designed to preserve the family unit and are necessary in an ever-progressing society to provide busy families reserved quality time with their loved ones a few times a year. But do it in a short window of time with limited time off from the very thing that pays for that holiday off. I could truly rant about this forever, but I digress. Progress requires structure. Structure creates memories, history, true stories that keep loved ones alive after they are long gone. Created to bring people together in the name of Family, Community, Love.
So, what if, we took the stress off these "traditional" ways and celebrated every day. Every day is a holiday because we have been granted another day to be with our families. We really should pause here and think about that. What if every day we just greeted one another in celebration. Did that thought make you uncomfortable? Why?
I think as a people, we have become programmed to complain but deep-down, we love to hate anything that makes somebody else happier than I, myself might be. So, we brag about the gifts we bought for so and so and how much it cost. Comparing ourselves to others with just how busy we are (or aren't) to see who does more and who has more, and why do they have more than me? Why can't we just be satisfied?
And are the holidays really any more special than any other day? Shouldn't we love and appreciate the memories of the mundane? And what about those that have no one to celebrate with? Who makes memories with them? And the children that have to choose homes? Or the kids who don't get to choose because some adult they look up to does it for them?
Please note I am not attacking any faith or religion or organized holiday. This is merely the means to the coming together of families and communities. It is in the acts itself of building a tradition that I am pondering. And why does it need to feel uniform. Holidays are just not a one size fits all.
I could go on forever. I would say it is a safe bet, that the holidays weren't that special because that person was made to not feel special on that day. Or maybe not on any day. Or maybe only on those days and then they go back to not being special enough to celebrate at all. Or just maybe, that person did celebrate the people they loved every day and just didn't want their loved ones to look at them as a holiday legacy, but as someone who put that same level of effort and love into the other days of the year, to make every day one of celebration for the option to choose.
With that I will leave these remaining random thoughts:
Love your people as if every day is a holiday
Love is not material or a contest
Not everyone gets to be with family or friends
Not everyone has family or friends
and not every child has a home.
No matter if you are person of family of tradition, no tradition or stuck in between take a break from the action and look around. Breathe it in and save the memory for the next generation. Hold the feeling in your heart for today and every day. And remember to be thankful. Thankful for the life we have been given and the love that is right before us.
Be thankful for the option to choose.
And for anyone out there that needs a friend, I'm here to help. You are not alone.
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