I’ve been in a state of flux this holiday season. I’m not sure exactly what is causing it, but I have a feeling it’s a combination of things.
Kat tells me that part of this flux is due to the death of my mom. Since she lost her mom last year just before the holidays, I think she has a lot of expertise in this matter. After all, this will be the first Christmas in 56 years without my mother. Sure, I was in Florida for eight years, but that doesn’t really count, since we talked daily and always shared holiday gift giving and calls. This year, I can’t even call to wish her a Merry Christmas. I suppose I could, but the long distance charges will kill me.
As I’ve written before, last Christmas was a total suck. Yes, my mom was alive, but I was in a dead-end relationship and Parker and I were still adjusting to life together. This year, Parker will be in Arizona, it being part of the child swapping arrangement I have with his mom. It’s not the best timing, largely because I was looking forward to our first Christmas as a new family, the Walesbys and the Zerrs.
I will be the only Zerr this year, until my daughter by some miracle decides to get into the spirit of the season and actually talk to me. Yes, this could be a contributing factor as well, but a small one as we’ve had an on again, off again relationship for some years now.
It didn’t help that Kat and I pre-honeymooned in Key West. Being gone a week in the first part of December definitely throws the holidays out of whack. A couple days after we decorated the tree, we were winging our way to the American tropics. For almost a week, we strolled the streets of Key West, laughing about the fir boughs, the yard decorations featuring Santa standing in snow (Key West has never seen freezing weather, let alone snow), and walking around in shorts and short-sleeve shirts during the day and night.
Not exactly something to put you in the Christmas spirit, especially when you yearn for the colder days that herald the arrival of the holiday season, something you get used to as a Northwesterner. It’s in the blood I guess, or the bones. All I know is that’s it’s somewhere.
The holidays used to be much jollier when I was on an anti-depressant. Well, not really jollier. Just fewer ups and downs. Make that no downs, no ups, just flat.
I can’t say I miss those days. Sure, I get a bit down now and again, especially this holiday season, but at least I have some actual feelings, whether they are up or down. And really, I do love the highs, especially the ones that seem to arrive daily now that I am finally with someone who adores me and accepts me for just who I am. Suffice it to say I smile a lot more than I ever have and Kat regularly gets to see my famous little boy smile, something others rare got to see and if they did, would immediately take me to task about it to the point that the little boy just withered away.
I guess part of the problem is that I always get these Walton’s kind of ideas about any event in my life. Being a creative, I tend to imagine what everything will be like. As we know, art rarely imitates life, or should I say, life rarely imitates art. Still, I tend to dream of images of what things will be like, and often I walk away disappointed, not because the event itself sucked – often it’s delightful – but because it could never live up to my high and unrealistic expectations.
Thankfully, I managed my expectations Saturday. Kat and I were invited to a concert by the Mainstreet Singers in Ballard. Our good friend Cassie is in the choir, and they put on an annual holiday program.
It was just what I needed. I’ve been working on being in the moment lately. It’s something Kat seems to do with ease all the time and she inspires me to live in the moment too. It’s not always easy, if only because of that damned imagination I have.
The concert was amazing. The songs were beautiful and they even had sing-alongs towards the end of the program to get us all in the holiday spirit.
Yes, I sang. Kat did, too. I had always heard that she had a beautiful voice and somewhere along the way I just stopped singing. I was totally entranced by the beauty of the music and hearing the voice of my angel next to me, singing at the top of her lungs.
Being in the moment, on that night in a church in Ballard, gave me an experience that I could never had imagined. It was nothing short of awe-inspiring.
Funny how the littlest things in life can be the cornerstones of change. You find that everything you thought about your life, or should I say, large parts of it, were totally wrong. Being in the moment – releasing all those worries about things that might happen but rarely do, or even those things that did happen that seemed insurmountable at the time but turned out to be a molehill and not a mountain – totally changes your stars.
I think God brought Kat into my life to show me the way, not to make me happy or complete, that’s nonsense, but to show me the path towards my own happiness, letting all that B.S. I used to hold so dearly go, including that perception of control over my surroundings, and just being in the moment, enjoying it for whatever it is, whatever it is meant to be, without editing it or filtering it ahead of time.
I think that is the best gift of all this holiday season. Presents are fun to get, but enjoying the littlest moments in life, truly in the moment, is something money could never buy.
Life is short, enjoy it, appreciate it and welcome it while you still can.
In the Emerald City wishing everyone a happy holiday season,
– Robb