this year my dad won't say, write me something, when i ask him what he wants for christmas.
because this year i won't ask my dad what he wants for christmas.
after so many december 25ths of sitting amongst piles of crumpled up paper and ribbons, surrounded by gifts and the people i love, and feeling some uncomfortable combination of gratitude and guilt, i finally said, enough.
both as in, i'm done.
and, more importantly, the people i love are enough.
i don't need presents. yes, there are things that i want. yes, there are even things that i need. yes, i have practiced, intently and awkwardly, for many years, the art of grace in receiving. yes, i appreciate so much about gift exchanges and sentiment.
but at the end of the day, i just don't want it anymore.
thirty-one christmases later, i feel too far from the genuine joy of choosing a special thing for a special person out of any sort of real desire to do so. instead, for many years, i found myself, asking myself if i had "enough" for each member of my family.
enough?
what on earth does that mean? enough what?
did i spend enough money to communicate to someone i love that they are loved? did i strike the right balance between cost and sentiment? are there enough concrete things beneath the tree to fill their hands so they don't feel empty? what am i trying to fill? who am i trying to please? what is enough?
maybe not everyone has this absurd internal monologue, maybe gift-giving and receiving are pure and simple and joyful for them.
i applaud them! i really do.
but those neurotic person questions i repeatedly asked myself, in combination with my general feeling that we live in society far too focused on consumption, led me to that enough.
after several conversations, the family agreed to skip gifts (some more readily than others). this involved a lot of clarifications and conversations on what exactly that meant.
in the end, i don't mind what happens. my brain just needed a reset. i needed a new attitude. i needed space to not be surrounded by things. i needed less.
it keeps running through my head. that word. less.
one of my sweet girlfriends relayed the meaningful instruction of her yoga teacher, who would have them enter into a pose, and then say, now give it 30% less.
my instinctual response is: WHAT?!
i am not about less. i am about intense and all and hyperbole and excess and poles and extremes and everything very much most to the absolute max. less just doesn't really make sense to me. the idea of putting less into your yoga pose is both confounding and totally perfect. it says, stop trying so hard. stop straining. stop even worrying if you're straining. find that balance of effort and ease. you're already trying, so now, give it less.
less.
this has been a year of less.
insert, subtitle: 2015, the year of less.
i wish i could just say, it was a year of less worry and less stress. i have a tendency, as many of us do, to wade through worry and stress. to bury myself in it. but it wasn't that kind of less. it wasn't abstract and intangible.
this year of less was concrete and measurable. i put less junk in my body. i accumulated less things by consciously limiting spending. i made less plans. i wasted less. i drank less. i fought less, yelled less, consumed less, cried less, needed less.
after that many lesses, the word loses meaning. and i understand that. that it's meaningless really. that less and more are only a standard of comparison between one thing and the other. that it's relative. that less junk also means more healthy food, and ultimately is only a matter of perspective.
but for me, that perspective of less is important. because i am a girl of constant piling on. of constant yeses and accumulation and effort and energy. and this year, the idea of less became very important, because it has to do with all that i am and have and can being absolutely enough already.
i have enough. i am enough. this is enough.
and so, i will not ask for any more. i will not make a list of things i want. i will not make a list of things i need.
this is not a guilt trip. it is not my assertion of superiority over the need for things. it's my acknowledgement that i deeply feel that need at times and no longer want to indulge it, because it sometimes actually scares me, and i know that, really, it hints at bigger issues that cannot be solved in lists and things. i do not want to feed it. i want to experience being content with less.
when i think about the holidays, when i think about gifts and the things that were meaningful, i think about my sister, kate. every year, we reminisce about the year we bought each other the same small doll as a christmas present. surely our parents just bought two of them and gave one to each of us to gift to the other, but the memory lies not in the doll. i don't remember what she looked like. i don't remember cherishing her greatly.
one christmas and one set (surely of many) of matching dolls that we had.
also beach bodies for DAYS.
what i do remember, either in actual memory or just in sharing a moment, every holiday season, reminiscing about the memory of the memory, is going to our favorite pizza parlor and talking about the dolls. it was, in fact, not a pizza parlor at all. it was an old school italian restaurant in a very tiny strip mall, across the street from what was then longs drugstore, less than half a mile away from our house. it had pleather booths and red and white checkered table cloths and walls covered in wood paneling. it was the only place we ever went out to dinner, ever so rarely, as my mom spent our youth both working and then seemingly so effortlessly making homemade meals from scratch every night.
on rare occasions, we'd go to petrini's. kate and i would share a cheese pizza and root beer, and thus, to us, it was a pizza parlor. and on some particular trip, on some particular year, we crawled under the table during dinner and whispered to each other our mutual secret: we had each gotten the other that very unmemorable, yet so very special little doll for christmas. we cherished our sameness and our secrecy. we cherished our moment under the table. we cherished our sisterhood.
and now, every year, at some juncture, we reminisce about it. every year, it is joyful and special and woven more deeply into the fabric of our story. we build upon our sisterhood and reflect upon how much it has grown and changed since the time we could easily fold our bodies into the shapes of secrets under pizza parlor tables.
that's what i want. that's what i want for christmas. i want that moment. i want to crawl under the table.
i know you can't create that. you can't force it. i know when you try to force meaningful moments they end up as inorganic and uncomfortable as the christmas presents had become for me. but i do know that, if any of those moments are going to happen, they will start with togetherness. they won't start in things. they won't be found in piles of snowman wrapping paper or satin bows. they won't be found as i scramble around, asking myself if it's enough.
because it's enough already. we have more than enough.
i repeat it to myself, a mantra. in time, it stops feeling like i'm trying to convince myself and more like a warrior cry. i am proud, satisfied, triumphant, as i speak the words to myself:
i have enough. i have more than enough.
because this year i won't ask my dad what he wants for christmas.
after so many december 25ths of sitting amongst piles of crumpled up paper and ribbons, surrounded by gifts and the people i love, and feeling some uncomfortable combination of gratitude and guilt, i finally said, enough.
both as in, i'm done.
and, more importantly, the people i love are enough.
i don't need presents. yes, there are things that i want. yes, there are even things that i need. yes, i have practiced, intently and awkwardly, for many years, the art of grace in receiving. yes, i appreciate so much about gift exchanges and sentiment.
but at the end of the day, i just don't want it anymore.
thirty-one christmases later, i feel too far from the genuine joy of choosing a special thing for a special person out of any sort of real desire to do so. instead, for many years, i found myself, asking myself if i had "enough" for each member of my family.
enough?
what on earth does that mean? enough what?
did i spend enough money to communicate to someone i love that they are loved? did i strike the right balance between cost and sentiment? are there enough concrete things beneath the tree to fill their hands so they don't feel empty? what am i trying to fill? who am i trying to please? what is enough?
maybe not everyone has this absurd internal monologue, maybe gift-giving and receiving are pure and simple and joyful for them.
i applaud them! i really do.
but those neurotic person questions i repeatedly asked myself, in combination with my general feeling that we live in society far too focused on consumption, led me to that enough.
after several conversations, the family agreed to skip gifts (some more readily than others). this involved a lot of clarifications and conversations on what exactly that meant.
in the end, i don't mind what happens. my brain just needed a reset. i needed a new attitude. i needed space to not be surrounded by things. i needed less.
it keeps running through my head. that word. less.
one of my sweet girlfriends relayed the meaningful instruction of her yoga teacher, who would have them enter into a pose, and then say, now give it 30% less.
my instinctual response is: WHAT?!
i am not about less. i am about intense and all and hyperbole and excess and poles and extremes and everything very much most to the absolute max. less just doesn't really make sense to me. the idea of putting less into your yoga pose is both confounding and totally perfect. it says, stop trying so hard. stop straining. stop even worrying if you're straining. find that balance of effort and ease. you're already trying, so now, give it less.
less.
this has been a year of less.
insert, subtitle: 2015, the year of less.
i wish i could just say, it was a year of less worry and less stress. i have a tendency, as many of us do, to wade through worry and stress. to bury myself in it. but it wasn't that kind of less. it wasn't abstract and intangible.
this year of less was concrete and measurable. i put less junk in my body. i accumulated less things by consciously limiting spending. i made less plans. i wasted less. i drank less. i fought less, yelled less, consumed less, cried less, needed less.
after that many lesses, the word loses meaning. and i understand that. that it's meaningless really. that less and more are only a standard of comparison between one thing and the other. that it's relative. that less junk also means more healthy food, and ultimately is only a matter of perspective.
but for me, that perspective of less is important. because i am a girl of constant piling on. of constant yeses and accumulation and effort and energy. and this year, the idea of less became very important, because it has to do with all that i am and have and can being absolutely enough already.
i have enough. i am enough. this is enough.
and so, i will not ask for any more. i will not make a list of things i want. i will not make a list of things i need.
this is not a guilt trip. it is not my assertion of superiority over the need for things. it's my acknowledgement that i deeply feel that need at times and no longer want to indulge it, because it sometimes actually scares me, and i know that, really, it hints at bigger issues that cannot be solved in lists and things. i do not want to feed it. i want to experience being content with less.
when i think about the holidays, when i think about gifts and the things that were meaningful, i think about my sister, kate. every year, we reminisce about the year we bought each other the same small doll as a christmas present. surely our parents just bought two of them and gave one to each of us to gift to the other, but the memory lies not in the doll. i don't remember what she looked like. i don't remember cherishing her greatly.
one christmas and one set (surely of many) of matching dolls that we had.
also beach bodies for DAYS.
what i do remember, either in actual memory or just in sharing a moment, every holiday season, reminiscing about the memory of the memory, is going to our favorite pizza parlor and talking about the dolls. it was, in fact, not a pizza parlor at all. it was an old school italian restaurant in a very tiny strip mall, across the street from what was then longs drugstore, less than half a mile away from our house. it had pleather booths and red and white checkered table cloths and walls covered in wood paneling. it was the only place we ever went out to dinner, ever so rarely, as my mom spent our youth both working and then seemingly so effortlessly making homemade meals from scratch every night.
on rare occasions, we'd go to petrini's. kate and i would share a cheese pizza and root beer, and thus, to us, it was a pizza parlor. and on some particular trip, on some particular year, we crawled under the table during dinner and whispered to each other our mutual secret: we had each gotten the other that very unmemorable, yet so very special little doll for christmas. we cherished our sameness and our secrecy. we cherished our moment under the table. we cherished our sisterhood.
and now, every year, at some juncture, we reminisce about it. every year, it is joyful and special and woven more deeply into the fabric of our story. we build upon our sisterhood and reflect upon how much it has grown and changed since the time we could easily fold our bodies into the shapes of secrets under pizza parlor tables.
that's what i want. that's what i want for christmas. i want that moment. i want to crawl under the table.
i know you can't create that. you can't force it. i know when you try to force meaningful moments they end up as inorganic and uncomfortable as the christmas presents had become for me. but i do know that, if any of those moments are going to happen, they will start with togetherness. they won't start in things. they won't be found in piles of snowman wrapping paper or satin bows. they won't be found as i scramble around, asking myself if it's enough.
because it's enough already. we have more than enough.
i repeat it to myself, a mantra. in time, it stops feeling like i'm trying to convince myself and more like a warrior cry. i am proud, satisfied, triumphant, as i speak the words to myself:
i have enough. i have more than enough.
