The older I get the more unsure I am about whether Christmas spirit is about joy, or anxiety. I feel anxious all the time around this time of year, as if things are supposed to go a certain way and we are all expected to live up to an embodiment of joy and virtue and miracles that is impossible.
I watched a documentary recently about a family in 1956 who had won a trip to Disneyland called 'Disneyland Dream'. I was never alive in the 50s, but I feel like we live with its endless idealism and imagination and disregard for the imminent depletion and real limitations of things like resources, and class systems, and human compassion.
And it makes me wonder why, 50 years later, we guilt ourselves for not having the 9 to 5, the nuclear household in a suburban neighborhood, or the safe retirement plan and latest appliances. Have we not figured out that the life model of going to college and getting a great job and earning that promotion and being rewarded for our integrity is based on the conditions of an American Dream which has clearly crumbled at its foundations?
We don't have Norman Rockwell dinners. People die, and jobs are lost. And integrity is rarely rewarded. And this isn't a tragedy, or a failure anymore than waking up from a dream. Its just the truth.
This Christmas, my grandmother is not with us, and we are not what we once were. Uncles are sick, and injured and unhealthy and Aunts miss their mothers. The children have finally moved out in their near 30s after five years or so of suffering questions of self-worth and capabilities. We are not ideal. How could we have been? But we are a family, and together, we are happy. We are perfect.
If you asked me what Christmas meant to me, the only thing I could be sure of is that this is the time my family spends two weeks out of the year eating food and playing games together- and that's good enough for me.
The new year brings even more anxiety. What is going to happen to us? Will this year be good? Will this year not be good? Will we follow through with the promises that we make to ourselves and others? Is this the year that the apocalypse will come? Am I going to die in 2011?
I forget sometimes, that January 1 is just a day like any other day. It has no magical powers except that it is a poignant reminder of the mystery that is our future, and the uncertainty it brings. It reminds us how much we hope, and fear. My grandmother died on December 31, 2010 and a chapter began in my life that I never even had a concept of. I simply just could not imagine life without her, and here I was, and here she was not.
But then life kept going, and I kept breathing, and I was alive. In June my dear friend Josh died accidentally, and I did not know that I could hurt so profoundly as I did when I realized that he'd had hopes and fears too, and dreams and that we'd never grow old together and be able to look back with joy on all our mistakes and masterpieces.
I will always hold that melancholy in my heart. Tears of grief are hot tears and they tattoo our cheeks. Every time we look in the mirror we see their marks, even if no one else can. Every time I look in the mirror, I see my grandmother, and Josh. How could I forget them when they are me?
It was so unexpected. Life has kept going and I have found that it is even more beautiful than I could have possibly grasped ten years ago, or even yesterday. Every day, and I realize how blessed I am to realize this, that out of reason or time we find each other and come together… that out of reason or time we can't help but to help each other find ourselves, lost as we are… we come back changed to the places that changed us, only to find that they have changed too and all of this hope and fear filters through our minds and into our own personal histories… and eventually, some time between now and our last breathe, we will see what an epic tale it is, that your life is a timeless legend so perfect that you couldn't have imagined or anticipated it even if you tried.
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