simplify

I need to simplify my thoughts about the holidays. When I was a kid, I remember almost driving my parents crazy in December, as I tried to instigate various traditions to create some feeling of stability and consistency. My parents were always anything but stable, my life anything but routine. This volatility was something I adapted to rather readily, such that I grew to practically abhor routine.

However, there was something about the christmas season that always felt different. Like an annual anchor. Something about this time of year prompted me to insist that things be somewhat predictable. If one year the star was the last thing we put on the tree, the next year it became very important to not only put the star on very last, but to make a big ceremony of it. If one year we made christmas cookies, I would insist the next year that we not forget to have our “christmas cookie day” as if it had been a long standing tradition. If one year in the car I saw lots of christmas lights at night, I would remind my parents the next year that we need to go on our yearly christmas light drive. Since I didn't have siblings as a kid (my sister wasn't born until I was 12), it was mostly up to me to get excited about and carry on these traditions, although my dad helped.

Life is completely different now than it was then. My parents are divorced, I live in a different city, I have a sister who never shared in most of those traditions (she's practically a different generation), I don't have a particular house or living room in which I want to spend christmas morning watching people open their gifts that I couldn't buy them because I'm a college student with zero income. I've let go of all these attachments to all these traditions, yet I still keep hoping for the familiarity of them to magically creep up. I keep wanting that feeling of stability and consistency, and as a result, I'm putting a great deal of unwarranted expectations on the holiday season.

Maybe there's a way for me to just slow down and enjoy the little nuances that make this year unique and special. Maybe somehow I can look forward to a christmas and a new year that will be different from any other. Maybe I can just take it one day at a time, without big holiday expectations, without need for attachment to the past or assurance of stability of the future, but just enjoy the moment. Maybe I can take pleasure in simple, passing beauties, rather than needing to latch on to them the way I used to.

Ironically, this post about simplifying is one of my longest posts ever.