Hibernation Fever
I’m in rehab or as I like to call it Connecticut. I’m staying with my mother through the holidays. It’s just me, her, Clancy the 200 pound golden retriever, and Tango that orange and white alley cat that likes to hide underneath my bed despite the fact that I’m allergic to her.
My mother shattered her shoulder and now she can’t open water bottles and brush her teeth without assistance.
It’s three degrees outside. Which means that during the day there’s nothing to do but to stay inside and stare out the window and guess if the mailman is going to be able to make it up the snow covered hill to her house.
Now I’m in the rec room where my mother and I gather every night after dinner and watch Jeopardy. Neither of us can answer the questions. So the conversation inevitably turns to my childhood, my mother’s three divorces, and the loss of her inner child.
And there we spend the night, two patients in our own self inflicted family therapy. She on one couch. I’m on the other. Both waiting for the big breakthrough that we know will never come.
Dude. Chill. That’s a lot of heavy shit, but I think you need to work on not feeling so victimized… so full of self pity. You obviously know what your problems are, so deal with them. Writing them in a blog for the whole world to see is certainly helpful, but this “woe is me” stuff just sounds whiny and emo. You obviously knew what was coming before you left for CT, so why didn’t you bring something to entertain the two of you, or something that would have elicited positive bonding as opposed to a self pity party. I don’t care if it’s Monopoly, the entire LOTR trilogy, or another bloody puppy dog, but something to stop the depressed doldrums from capturing you in their icy grips. Life is too short for this shit that you put yourself through, and I’ve grown tired of reading all your “oh everything is wrong” crap. Everything is wrong, everybody has issues that are similar to this, if not in subject than in emotional impact.
So chill. And have a Merry Christmas. And extend my best wishes to your mother.
- Rev.
Whoa, Whoa, Whoa…
Maybe it’s the warmer climate, but I didn’t take this post what-so-ever as “woe is me”. Instead, I read in it as a very simple admission of the flip side of he coin that the holidays bring. Sure, some years when the rain and snow fall outside our chilled shelters, if, our circumstances are optimum, we celebrate, we sing, drink egg nogg, and exchange heartfelt gifts while basking in the warm glow of a fire. And some years we are more melancholy. Some years we spend the holidays alone, or almost alone…sometimes the mirth that the holidays should (as publicized) bring, make us realize and reflect upon our own shortcomings…both past and present…and so it goes.
It’s all part of the greater journey, isn’t it? Sometimes its the silence and awkwardness shared among our family members that brings us to a shared experience and recognition. And someday when you are you filling stockings and singing carols after pumkin pie and resigning to a warm bed with someone you love, someday you will appreciate it all-the-more after remembering this holiday season. It’s the journey that will have made you so strong.
And, any Reverand that should disagree with me, should pick up a C.S. Lewis book, any one of them…and remember that the truths, they are not always so black and white.
M.E.