Valentine's Day Versus This Single Female...

A week late and a dollar short I’ve decided to weigh in on this dreaded holiday that I once upon a time considered pity party trigger material. It's hard being single. As a member of the table for one club for quite a few years I have a perspective to offer to this particular conversation. Previous postings that have tips on being a single individual are I Majored In Flirting In College & Flirting 101: Continued. My roommate true to form has once again proven a major advantage, 1/2 off candy in the days following Valentine’s Day. I read in the Satanic Bible written by Anton Szandor LaVey that everyone hates lovers, couples. For me it was an envy of their happiness that made me want to eat a gun.

Like most people I assumed I should search for true love, happily ever after and the whole kit and caboodle. I assumed I could find happiness with another human being. A very good friend suggested that being single was a good thing. She said that I was lucky to be single and childless. She is still a wise woman whose opinion I value. When she told me this I finally started to shift my thinking on the single life.

In the last year I've learned that my relationship with myself is the hardest one to maintain. When I compared myself to other people I tend to place me as second, not hoping for first place in someone else's heart. It is through self placement as first in my own heart and with the help of my Higher Power that I've started to see self love as a solution to loneliness. 

I was an only child growing up. Again I was told this was supposed to be a good thing by my peers. I didn't have siblings to fight with or over who was the favorite among my parents. According to both of my parents I was it. The one and only. My bio-dad reminded me often he wished I'd been a boy. He took that a step further and mentored young men when I decided his career choice for me wasn't the right path for me. My mother showed me through example how to be both parents by being a single mom most of my young life. She was my disciplinarian, protector, best friend, and advocate until her death. When she died, my world crumbled and I spent the next few years lost without her guidance.

The yearly round of holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years tend to have me missing her presence. For the first time in a long time I tried to recreate the flavors of her soul by cooking black eyed peas and greens for New Year's Day. Okay, so I cheated on the greens and used canned. I have to say overall it was a pretty good cooking, not quite my mom's but the memory was less painful this past year than in previous years. So I'm calling it a win. 

As I look forward to this year, I'm trying to finish up the final draft of Forced to Change and publish it. My mother taught me to go after my dreams hardcore. From the grave I still feel her encouragement and unconditional love. She died while I was in college and as I move forward in my life it usually hits me hard the achievements she misses in my life. I spent a lot of time fearing and hurting that she didn't get to witness my graduation from college.

When I graduated from college it irritated me that my bio-dad claimed credit for that accomplishment. He went on to belittle my mother's influence and sacrifices. I agree that without his help, I wouldn't have made it through. We often bumped heads as he tried to iron fist me to the finish line, er, graduation day. My mother's death offered me opportunities that I appreciated more in the moment with a lower level understanding of the price I continue to pay, her physical absence from my life. 

My dad and I often had misunderstandings about who I was as a person. In my eyes he often failed to make sure I knew it was okay to be who I am. He constantly conflicted his actions with his words as he told me who he wanted me to be. He pressured me to be his ideal and until his death I continued to feel that pressure while finding that no matter how hard I tried, I disappointed him with my choices. For me it felt as if my parents were divided in their plans for me and until I found a solid religious foundation I couldn't reconcile their battle.

Today, I'm single and loving it most of the time. I try to try to be a better person and work on and own my issues. I pray constantly for my future. I use my past as a road map of who I could be with enough effort and hard work. Writing continues to be a marathon, not a sprint and four years later I still have yet to finish the work on Forced to Change.

As I stare at the finish line, publishing, I've taken a step back to reflect on the person who started this writing project with the one that I am today. So yes still single, but not as lonely. I’ve come to depend on my roommate and I've learned to be a friend indeed. For the time being I've shelved the hope of being #1 in someone else's heart as it is not part of what drives me to succeed or something by which I measure my own success. I leave this up to my Higher Power and I know that what is meant to be will be.

Merry Christmas Tree…What Does Christmas Mean To Me?

Some years I’m all Scrooge, “Bah Humbug!” and what have you. I refuse to be touched by the holiday season for any reason. I get angry seeing Christmas displays up one day after Halloween. Personally, I’m not a shopper. I hate shopping. I hate parting with a penny for any reason. I grew up frugal with a mother who had beer money and champagne tastes but made that work for us. My mother taught me to buy quality over status and to bargain shop for things needed over what is wanted. As a result I still practice these habits today.

Clothes, well, when I purchase clothing I look for things that will last for years. I’m the same with shoes. I don’t wear jewelry, except earrings from time to time. For the most part I live pretty minimalistic. My worldly possessions would have fit in the bed of my truck when I got ready to move. I only used the trailer so I didn’t have to unpack my truck every night while I was driving across the country.

Once upon a time the holiday season was all about family. For me that meant my mother and I. We had our traditions that we cultivated over the years. When she was with my father and stepfather this meant extended family, cousins, grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc. When I was younger I bounced back and forth one year with mom, one year with bio dad, splitting Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring Break, and Summer vacation.

My favorite aunt loves to remind me of the Christmas I asked for a walkie-talkie. I asked my mom, my dad, and her for the toy. It was all I really wanted. My best friend lived across the street from me and we figured that way we could chat at night. So I wanted one. I got three sets that year. The nicest part, they all worked together so guess who was able to hook up the entire neighborhood with them? Me.

The year I begged for a CD player for Christmas I only got one from my father. My family had learned how to divide and conquer my Christmas wish. Anyway, I got CDs from the rest of the family and my friends so I knew a CD player would be under the tree. Only my father left it in the trunk of his car making it the last gift I received. So after opening a pile of CDs with no more presents under the tree, I knew one was on its way. He kept up the charade trying to convince me he hadn’t bought me one.

I wasn’t fooled. He swore up and down for about twenty minutes that he didn’t buy one. I was like sure, right, whatever. Finally he fished the CD player out of his trunk and gave it to me while calling me ungrateful. I was about as grateful as a teenager could be for an expected gift, not so much, but just enough. He’d wanted to surprise me, only he always bought me what I wanted for Christmas, so really where was the surprise?

That also happened to be the first Christmas to follow when I stopped speaking to him for the first time. I chose to stop speaking with him for four years after he’d told me he wished I’d been an abortion. My father was an alcoholic, only I didn’t realize it at the time. He appeared quite successful despite his illness. He was a very proud man who felt he didn’t have a problem. I once told my father he was the most functional alcoholic I knew. He heard ‘functional’ and assumed it was a compliment. I meant ‘alcoholic’ and wished he’d obtained help for it before it killed him.

I didn’t spend many Christmas’s with him after that one. The argument that resulted from whether or not I was grateful for the gift left a bad taste and impression on me so after that, I spent the holidays with my mother until her death.

My mother and I did sushi for Thanksgiving and cornish hens for Christmas. Turkeys meant leftovers for weeks and unless we spent the holiday with friends, it was just too much work. I could cook some things but it wasn’t like we needed that much food which we would have wasted anyway. My mother and I eventually got into a few habits, traditions as a result. We’d go see a movie after eating and spending the day together. We didn’t exchange gifts. We just hung out and enjoyed the time off together. That was it.

After her death I had a hard time celebrating the holidays. Sometimes I’d go over to a friend of my mother’s house, but nothing replaced our special time together. Eventually I was just too depressed to do much around that time of year. Today, I don’t look forward to the holidays, at least not to the degree I did as a kid. The magic of the holiday season has been missing from my life for quite awhile. I get depressed when they are coming around and spend a lot of time writing, missing my mother, and now missing my father, too.

My father passed away December a few years ago. At the time we weren’t on speaking terms again. His alcoholism killed him and damaged our relationship beyond repair. I’m grateful that I chose to visit him when I knew he was about to die and we did have a forgiveness conversation the day before he died.

I guess what I need to do is start a new tradition this time of year. One that doesn’t include so much mourning of my past. Letting it go and letting the promise of a new year be the key to moving past my depression and into a new course for being the best me I can be. It’s great in theory, but how do I practice such a thing and break a bad/not good for me habit?

First off, I moved across the country this year. I’m in a new place mentally and physically in my life. So I guess that’s a huge stepping stone to changing my habits for the holidays. I’m trying to see things a bit different than I did in prior years. So hopefully this year won’t be so much about mourning and all Bah Humbug as much as what’s new.  I can’t wait to see what will happen next.

Merry Christmas Tree and may the best of my past be the worst of my future...