It seemed as though it would be a stressful day. Without a
doubt, I had some blues from saying goodbye to my sister and brother-in-law and
sweet little bubble of a nephew. More blueness for nostalgia; some for worry
over my parents’ happiness; some for the time-worn discovery I seem to have
every time I get a couple days off of work: that though I am happy, I am not
living my happiness to the fullest.
Then there was the house to clean and Thanksgiving dinner to
plan – which I have never once done before in my life, and which I am already
certain to fail at on some level in comparison to my amazing mother and my
amazing sister who is following in her footsteps. I am not the domestic one of the family!
The holidays are upon us, people, and there hasn’t been a
single one since I have passed into the precarious mental state known as
adulthood, during which I have not mustered up some sort of breakdown or
another in the privacy of my own privacy. Money or work or gift-giving or missing-people
or a need-for-space or all-of-the-above giving way to a much-needed, thoroughly
enjoyable sob fest that often involves some Kenny Chesney music and always ends
in a headache.
So it not only seemed like it would be a stressful day, it
also seemed perfectly reasonable that it would be a stressful day. People are
always sad. This is something I’ve learned as a grown-up. Not sad in a
disheartening, dysfunctional, depressed way. Just sad in an acknowledgement of all
the good things that have ever been and won’t be again. Or maybe that’s just my
family. At any rate, I am prone to it. And there is nothing like the holidays
to make me realize:
2. I have been for a very long time.
3. I miss the blessings that have passed. I mean, my heart actually hurts for them.
4. I fear a future that lacks as many blessings as the ones I have now.
5. It seems impossible to be blessed without recognizing that
a. things change (not always for the worse).
b. the world contains both blessings and lacks thereof.
c. one cannot relive the greatness of past blessings, but only
d. try to live with the remembrance of those blessings and become a more deserving person. And
e. I rarely live up to my blessings.
So yes, the holidays stress me out because I am too blessed
to handle it. How’s that for lousy and unappreciative and nonsensical?
But the thing is that I wasn’t stressed today. Oh sure,
there were tears. And Kenny Chesney music. And blessings. But as I sit here,
now on in my own little living room, on my soft rug, looking at a clean house,
listening to Jeremiah Took snore away on the wall, I am whole-heartedly not
stressed. Overwhelmed by many things, yes. Uncertain, certainly. Clear-headed,
no. Happy, yes. And unstressed.
There is a beautiful irony in the stressfulness that the
holiday season seems to induce that I never recognized until today. Oh, the
irony I’ve always been well aware of. But the beauty, I’ve been blind to. That
we should spend too much money, and grow resentful over not knowing what to get
people, and plow other shoppers down to get to sale items, and stay too busy to
actually spend time together, these things I have always recognized as ironic
in the worst illustration of human culture. But there is also a sweetness to
our irony, to our lack of perspective, to our ability to royally spoil a
beautiful time of year. Because, you see, it is the type of time when we are
overwhelmed by our blessings. By our possibilities, and our moments to indulge,
and our opportunities to share and love and be loved. Of course we muddle it up. Of course
we miss some of the sparkle and wonder and grace. We are looking for it so
hard. We are trying desperately to do it right. We are over-eager. We are like the
child on the playground who wants so badly to help his little sister walk that
he drags her to her knees. We are like the intern on an interview who slips and
says the wrong company name. If only, we think to ourselves, if only we jump in
early this year, head-first, balls out, embrace the season from its first
nanosecond to its last. If only we do all the things at all the times and do
them all right. If only we are as perfect as the season. If only we invest more
than we did last year. Then we will have
finally lived it to the fullest. Then we will have finally deserved the bounty
and the beauty and the blessing.
We are wrong of course. The best things in life, it seems,
are simple. The purest and gentlest and least manipulated actions are the ones
that – at least for me – bring the most peace and joy and revelation. It is
through the very basics of family and nature that I truly feel the holiday
spirit. But the ironic beauty is in the vision. In our motivation for pursuing
the perfection. We lack the insight to simply, faithfully follow the star. We
must jump and twist and buck and bound and bolt off course time and again, like
puppies learning how to heel or kid goats chasing butterflies. And that is our
gift. To be allowed this immaturity of spirit. To not have our blessings yanked
impatiently away from us in our stupidity. To be showered with them again, to
be loved and appreciated despite our repetitious naïveté. To be given the
chance to try and fail and learn and take joy in the moments that we actually
understand. To be allowed to never quite grasp the big picture, even when it is
laid generously before our eyes. To be just ourselves.
Emerson wrote, “If the stars should appear one night in a
thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many
generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every
night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their
admonishing smile.” What patience, it seems to me, must be required to handle
our incessant ambivalence! But that, too, we are granted. Each year, the season
arrives to remind us of all the very most important things in life. Each night,
the stars take up the same mantle. To remind us that, take them or leave them,
our blessings are ours.
-R.E.A.
