I recently had a birthday. It is always near Thanksgiving. I was born November 29th, 1971. I always look forward toThanksgiving weekend. First of all, it is an awesome holiday! It is about relaxing, eating yummy food, spending time with people you love, and reflecting on things you are grateful for. AND it is the gateway to the holiday season. A kind of ‘game on’ if you will, moment. Especially for moms. AND it is my birthday weekend.

Ever since I could work, around 14 or so, not counting the failed paper route and babysitting, I have had a job . It has always been in retail or service of some form, and that means nights and weekends. When I was a young person, even during divorced and uncertain years, we usually went out of town to be with extended family, in the country, for a luxuriously long holiday weekend. Think an approximation of Norman Rockwell, with a healthy undertone of David Sedaris. And I myself, coming much more from the ‘Running with Scissors’ vantage point.

One of the things I have loved the most, since those early days working in retail, was that this holiday meant that I HAD to carve the whole weekend out, so that I could go along to the family happenings. In my family, there were very few plans . And so I never knew if I was going to be included in the random ‘goodish’ stuff. For this holiday weekend, I always knew I would at least be present. That in and of itself was a blessing. Throughout high school and later, college, the added ritual of toting tomes of school work along, became a fresh layer to the routine. The idea even then being, that I must use this vast expanse of time in front of me, only to inevitably open a mere one book once or so, to justify the heaviness of the transport. To this day, I have not learned to travel light.

I am now 49, and this is 2020. By all accounts this is a shitshow of a year.

The promise of Thanksgiving weekend every year continues to be a belief that it is a ‘free’ weekend to look forward to. One during which might I enjoy days outstretched before me that are vacant, expansive, and mine to paint as I see fit.

My family history is complicated at best, and traumatic at worst. My defense is quite obviously, that I am a self proclaimed wellbeing junkie , who likes to prepare myself to either get things rightish, or to avoid as much pain as possible.

I have learned that, in practical householder terms, the Holiday season comes due Thanksgiving weekend. Prior to Thanksgiving, if you have your holiday season all mapped out and tied up nicely with a bow, you are some kind of a freak (and I am completely jealous and admire you. Let’s be friends!) Whereas just after Thanksgiving, if you don’t have your next holiday planned, you are suddenly laughably behind, with no hope of obtaining affordable holiday items or reasonable shipping before Christmas. I personally have an adult ritual of doing the family cards and calendars Thanksgiving weekend, in order to ensure achieving 60% off of the price every year (because otherwise who can afford cards and calendars?!) And also to ensure delivery in reasonable time before Christmas.

Now how I ever became a ‘typical household family, doing typical household family things’ is beyond me. And so every year, as the pressure mounts, I have an argument with myself that begins well before the first snow. The argument can be summed up as this:

I could really make things easier and start this project before Thanksgiving weekend! (C’mon! I’m 49 now!)
Who needs holiday cards and calendars anyway? ( I mean, what am I trying to prove?)In the dumpster fire year of 2020, two things are clear, we all have a free pass & nobody needs to do anything at all that they don’t want to, or can’t pull off. AND we are all perceived to have endless amounts of time to make meaningful effort. Rather than cards seeming frivolous and unimportant and perhaps a bit anti-environmentalist, suddenly every touchstone of human connection is vitally important. And in spite of conservation of the planet, it is also time to get out and support the US postal system. (Who knew that would be a thing?!)

So I did my patriotic & family duty, and buckled down. Not only did I do my cards and calendars Thanksgiving weekend, but I was working on them for approximately 12 hours on my birthday. My birthday. And I am a mom, so I get exactly 2 days per year where I am not obliged to do anything parental, wifely, or maidservant like. I took my precious freedom, my ‘queen for a day’ status, to make holiday printable materials. Touchstones. Memories. Connection points. The symbol of throwing my hat in as ‘participant’ for the holiday season.

No one is making me, and that is important to note. I am not saying that. We all have more choice than we realize. But when faced with either making things that celebrate our family and make us feel connected to the spirit of the season and others, or pushing it off out of a sense of self interest and time-wasting frivolity, well you know which one I chose.

I, in my wise old-safely-mid-lifeish-age, might be beginning to realize that my love of the gateway to the holiday season, is perhaps, something more akin to ambivalence . As I realize this with more and more certainty, I realize that I am not alone. (See every holiday themed movie ever. My preferences leaning heavily towards the dysfunctional ones. Think Home for the Holidays , a film I was shocked to discover does not give everyone the same delight as I. Apparently squirmy awkwardness just isn’t a warm-fuzzy for everybody!)

As I ponder this universal ambivalence, I realize I can divide the majority of mine into two areas. The first is the funny and insidious way that we fool ourselves. It is like this process of learning the same lesson year after year after year. If anything, let this be a bread crumb for future me, like in ‘50 First Dates’ when Drew Barrymore’s character has a chronic condition of short-term amnesia, and has to watch a video before she starts every day. A video to teach her the most critical things she needs to know to avoid her inevitable pain of daily discovery. (Man, we should all watch that tape, at least for the holidays and major, predictable, sinkholes.) This pre-Thanksgiving season, I was sailing along, convincing myself that I was fine and in control. Pacing myself and totally looking forward to my burgeoning holiday season and birthday weekend. Then about a week out, I noticed that I was becoming very testy. I started to feel like I just couldn’t cope with life. The worst day was one of my busiest work days of the week. I was getting pretty annoyed with myself for my feelings of overwhelm, thinking that I was just over-reacting to the stress of the compressed work week, something that I routinely experience and navigate. This started me down a typical self-loathing cycle, wherein I judged myself for having not so great feelings, and not being able to get myself out of the malaise. One of the benefits of my work is that it is client and connection based. This benefitted me, as I shared with a friend/client my feelings.

When I talk with others, I see things so clearly, creating the ability to get out of my own head and way. While visiting I was somehow able to jump the track, and imagine what my therapist would say to me if I was sharing with her this problem. She is an amazing therapist, and her cue would be so simple. She would ask me this:

‘When you were growing up, and things were disordered, what were the holidays usually like for you?’ (We have a history, so she already knows things were ‘disordered.’)

As soon as I imagined this conversation, I laughed, I almost laugh-cried, and I said:

‘The holidays were hard for me.’

And then I said it a few more times, to let it sink in.

‘The holidays were hard for me.’

‘The holidays are hard for me.’ Immediately my physiology changed, and I could see the whole thing as if I was watching from above.…..

The holidays were/are usually fucking hard for me! And without realizing it, years and years later, as an independent person victim to no one, I do the things I usually do. It goes something like this:

It’s like I’m on the Titanic, and I know that we are headed for imminent danger, but I don't know exactly where the danger is, or when or how it will arrive. But I know it will be bad. And so I start scurrying faster and faster and faster, to try to thwart off the danger. And as I feel myself getting worked up, but as I am not yet conscious of why I am worked up, I start judging and hating and blazing myself up….For. Getting. Worked. Up.

And then, like letting the air out of a balloon, these simple words, ‘The holidays are hard for me.’ freed me up, at least a little.

The other thread that dominates my holiday ambivalence, and this is a little like slaying dragons and running naked in the streets at the same time, is this...

Many years ago while working one of my favorite random adventure jobs, selling leather goods at the MN State Fair (one of my favorite places, events, times, seasons of the year,) I was reading an article in a woman's magazine of some sort. Now Fair time, like the holidays, the New Year, and nearly every other time that you can imagine of note, always stir up in me this one familiar feeling. I am a little ashamed, as it is not particularly feminist or  compassionate, or enlightened. It is simply this:

‘I have run out of time to clean out my closets, lose weight, and save money.’ It usually has to do with those times of note when seasons may be changing, appearances will be made, and events will take place with an abundance of food and drink and various sundries that do not incline one to clean their home, lose weight, or save money. It’s like the event, season, or holiday comes, and we all line up for judgement and scrutiny knowing that from that moment forward, at least for a bit, these results will not improve.

Now I deeply realize that there is more to living than buying into this not very pro-woman or pro-human habit of scrutiny and judgement. These performative notions of acceptance and achievement via deprivation. But yet I fall victim. It was during one of those moments in time...self-judgement in the midst of the ‘difficult to dress for weather,’ ‘too hot or too cold’, ‘not themed enough work attire for Heritage Square’ and surrounded by delicious hedonism and gluttony, have a beer and a coffee followed by a corn dog, while surrounded by leather goods & the warm smell of sweetish/sour garbage, mid-mornings, that I found myself reading an article written by a wise woman of age. She was speaking back to all of us younger women with a plea. Younger including the likes of 50, 60 and beyond, because we are always younger than something. At the time of reading, I was likely still shy of 30. (Now there is a thought.) Her message was that she had observed over a lifetime, that every few years she would discover a photo of herself from 5 or so years prior. She would stare at that photo and inevitably think to herself:

‘I looked pretty good there, I wish I would have known that then.’

She would repeat this year after year. Look back and think to herself:

‘ I looked pretty good back then, I wish I would have liked myself more.’

The photos aged with her. She continued to mature, and look back just a little. Every 5 years or so.

This repeated era after era throughout her lifetime. Age a bit. Discover a photo. Reflect.
Think:
‘I looked pretty good back then, I wish I would have liked myself better.’

Always looking back and thinking the same.

‘My girlfriends and I used to joke during ‘difficult’ body image times of life. Times like pregnancy, post-pregnancy, and other times of life that caused rapid physical change, usually in the enlarging direction:

‘I just wish that I could get back what I always hated.’

This would be followed by a hearty chuckle, and a deafening pause.

It takes a little life to feel these things. Some experience. Some awareness of the ways that we fall victim to ‘measuring’ ‘judging’ and ‘self-loathing’ cultural tendencies.

I am grateful that I read that article back then, but just because someone shined a light, doesn’t mean that I don’t get lost, and fall down.

These concepts of holiday performance and body image are complicated layers. As I reflect upon the holiday season and my magical ‘ birth giving ’ weekend, that time that I was so looking forward to, until I caught myself in the cross-hairs of it all, I also realize that I am many things.

I am a middle-aged mom, a householder, a wife, an entrepreneur-type-person with many jobs, and a person with a chronically anemic bank account. I am a person needing to put on a holiday, and order up a Christmas season that is going to deliver, while facing her lifelong historical-holiday-ambivalence, at a time when the whole world is teeming to be happy. Teeming to be grateful. It is both a time to do it all, and a time to mandatorily relax, do nothing, and soak it all in. And this particular ‘birth giving’ included a near-milestone birthday of import. A certain reflection-point. A hopeful mid-point. A potential pain-point.

Am I living a good life? How am I raising my children? My girls? Am I a good role-model for girls? Am I qualified for that? Am I a good wife? How am I going to make it if I still struggle to pay for even a modest holiday season? Am I a good human? Why do I ask such frivolous questions? Will I look back and say: ‘You looked pretty good then, I wish you could have liked yourself more?’ Am I sharing appropriate messages? Am I on my path? That person I had to let go of to save myself, is that ok? What does forgiveness look like?

Am I ok? Will we be ‘ ok?’

Have we hit the ‘iceberg’ yet ?

I have much to be grateful for indeed. But is it all a paper thin house of cards? Does it have frayed edges and loose strings? Could you just pull a tiny bit at the wrong thread and dismantle it all before your eyes? In an instant?

Have I mentioned anxiety...Another month perhaps?

What is this is 49 all about? I struggle. I hope. I crave. I yearn. I am. This is 49.