12/20/2010

The magic has long since left the season.  I find in it no joy, no compassion, no love.  Instead it smells of harried shoppers, angry drivers, and an impatience so pervading that it colors everything.  Commercialism spiraling out of control long ago choked the spirit out of the season and left behind only the cold repetition of tradition.  Yet I fall prey to it, as do so many others, out of a sense of obligation.  From a desire to make this a good time for those I love, I take misguided steps, wipe my bank account down to near nothingness, and stress. Worry. Obsess.  Is it good enough?  Is it enough?

Each year I think to myself that next year I shan’t put myself through all this.  That I shall find something simpler, sweeter, more gesture and less monetary to gift to those I love.  Then each year, I get caught up once again in the shopping frenzy.  Is it enough? Will he like it?  A trap I fall into the most with my brother.  After all these years I am still trying to prove to him that I am someone worth knowing.  I spend hours and hours looking for something this stranger may like.  Something his wife will find pleasing.  Its no small task when I know almost nothing about them.  I fret. I worry.  I obsess.  I turn away so many possibly gifts as "not good enough".  Just maybe this present will be the thing that melts his heart and makes him want to know me.  

For me, Grandmary and Papa were my Christmas.  Without them it has all felt flat and hollow.  I pretend, for the sake of my parents.  Christmas morning is show day.  Paste on my smile, pull out the razzle dazzle.  Ooh, ahh, act as excited as I was when I was young.  Faking it.  This year is round two of my solo performance.  Pressure’s on.   I’ll perform though, I always do. 

I just realized how very… droll and pathetic this entry sounds.  My sincerest apologies, I suppose though, its better to let it out here than have it affect the rest of my actions throughout the day.

Now, its onward.  Eye doctor, mayhaps.  Shopping, definitely.  Hopefully without the interference of my now… 10 day… migraine. 

‘Tis the Season, and all that.