Life On The Ledge ©

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Around the Block

And back again. I did just that. You know, I never thought about how very much I did things with someone else. Really. In the last years of his life Jerry had jobs whose hours conflicted with mine terribly. Even Saturday was a bust. We had only one day a week for a long time. But we always spent the time we had together either doing stuff around the house or at church or going to the store. He got to where he was doing all the shopping. I just made the list.

So, again I am reminded strongly how very much I hate shopping and I despise it alone. There is no reason to go to a store if I can help it.

What did I do? Nothing I intended. I went to CVS to pick up some gifts for Sarah. She loves playing Old Maid and Go Fish with me. Got her gifts. I went to Lowe's looking for lights. Didn't have them. But I did get house numbers to put outside. Randy covered mine up when he built the porch. Fortunately, they were the stick on kind so it didn't matter. These are metal and I'll attach them to the step railing facing the street. I also got two packages of pretty baubles for the tree. Left Lowe's and went to get a gift card. Came home. No, it wasn't enjoyable.

My next big event, after working four days will be get ready to cook Christmas dinner. I'm going for fast and simple and less. Only complication will be homemade dressing. Not the box stuff. The real cornbread dressing. I'll buy couple of rotisserie chickens from Sam's and my desserts. I'll make a small ham. Everyone will be happy. I might, just might make Jerry's favorite Lemon pie but not sure. I only made it because he liked it, even though everyone else does, too but I'm leaning to ready made desserts. No, I won't make it.

I really am going to find something else to do for Christmas next year. Maybe a trip to some place warm and sunny. I'm done with this stuff. I absolutely hate it. I no longer find any pleasure in any of it and that's sad in a way. But it is true. I don't want to do anything at all.

So why am I? Because I'd like to give Sarah a few memories of something that was and when it was, there was joy. With me, the traditions will die out. I'd like her to know what they were. I am alone here and with no close family and no siblings it will be gone. When you have sons it is different. Unless there are wives who want to continue family traditions, they disappear.

I know people make their own traditions, each generation doing new things. My sisters and I have tried to keep ours going but for me, it ends here. I think I'm done. Maybe that's for the best.

I suspect the next 44 days are going to be a little slice of hell on earth. At least for me.

Finding The Meaning

I'm heading out now to find some meaning in the madness. I suppose I have to buy gifts at some point. It has, oddly enough, become something so meaningless that I'm stunned at how little it means. I can buy that gift anytime. Why did I waste years stressing over it? Running all over to find the perfect gift? I'm a bit ashamed. I need to remember what this particular holiday means. Not what it has become.

No, stop. I don't want to hear your opinion about the pagan roots of Christmas.... or any other holiday for that matter. I don't care. The reason the ancient world turned from those things is hope. They reinvented them to encompass something beyond the superficial. They saw hope and reached for it. The problem isn't that the reason changed. People changed, and only in the last 50-60 years!

The hope remained. It was the light, there before us, suspended in the heavens. At His birth. And at His death. Get rid of all the trappings you want. Burn the tree. Trash the decorations. Ban the images and call them archaic. Suppress all Christian religious speech and thought. (Not any other religions stuff cause that would be repressive and a violation of someones rights). You can do all of that. It won't matter to me.

Because the hope is still there, right in front of us. You can't take the stars from the sky. You can't suppress the Light that shines through time and space and pierces to the darkest heart. You can talk all the visual and audible images of Christmas and burn them in the deepest pit. And you still won't touch what it means to us. You won't be able to suppress the reality because it is beyond your ability to do so. You won't be able to stop the hope. There is no power, political or personal, that can change what it really means. We are what makes it what it is because He was who he was. You can't change that, no matter how many X's you put in it.

Merry Christmas. Yeah, I think so.