Joy to the world?
Dec. 9th, 2001 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
judecorpI'm glad I dragged myself out of bed this morning. I went to church this morning for the first time in a very long time of papers and finals and all of that. It was /packed/! My goodness... I don't know if the holidays are bringing them out in droves to First UU or if it's just become more popular in the month or so that I've missed. Either way, I'm glad I went.
The service's focus, believe it or not, was on depression. It's odd to have a service on depression, let alone in the middle of the "joyful holiday season." We're expected to be bright and shiny and festive like the lights we hang, like the presents we exchange, like the snow that falls. However, we all know that a good percentage of us don't feel that way, and we call them "scrooges" or "mopes" and chide them. "Where's your holiday spirit?" we ask, or instead scold, "Let's see some of that holiday cheer!"
The point of the sermon was that this sort of chiding goes against universal acceptance. It goes against loving people for who they are, for what they are. The good things we point out in other people during the holidays exist in them year-round, and the not-so-happy bits we see in people also exist year-round, though for some, the dark and the cold, or distant memories, intensify this. It made me think twice about expecting myself to auomatically love the holidays.
Now, the thing is, I /do/ love the holidays. Presents and lights and family and home-cooked meals and caroling and cards and phone calls and joy joy joy are right up my alley. I love to shop for people, and being able to shop for them all at once is thrilling. But there are moments in the day, and days in the week, and maybe even weeks in the winter where I'm not joyous, and I expect myself to be. I expect others to be. Don't we all?
Not anymore. I spout that we are all inherently worthy individuals, that we are all universally connected to each other, and yet, in this "joyous" season I exclude, point fingers, and look down upon. There are reasons for depression, either situational or biochemical, and that doesn't remove any worth, and that doesn't disconnect anyone from the web of life.
And on that note...
This evening, as I was driving west on the North Outerbelt heading home from Easton with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
binkiegirl, I saw one of the things I've come to like about Columbus. At night, driving west on 270, the bridge just west of 315 is all lit up with streetlights, year-round, and it's very pretty. I don't know why a lit up bridge is pretty to me, but it is. I like it. It makes me smile.
Columbus, though it's in the midwest and all and has no ocean which I simply cannot tolerate, is a pretty nice place. I like it. It's kept me well the past year and a half, and I will think back on it with fond memories, I'm sure.
...but it wasn't supposed to turn out like this. THIS, this current situation that I'm in, was not supposed to be Columbus to me. Columbus was a new start outside of Maine (Maine being synonymous with depression in the Book of Jude), the first place A. and I would live where we would /only/ be known as married to each other. The first place where 'L--------' was my last name and people would know me as that and it would be my identity. It was to be the first place that would be entirely ours, that we would discover together, and maybe we would buy our first house.
Well, people here in Columbus /do/ know me as Jude L-------, and we did discover Columbus together, but unfortunately, these things are not turning out to be positives. I'm going through the Maine situation in reverse - I'm correcting people and giving them my family name rather than my married name, and I'm finding those places that were ours and deciding they're not great places.
I'm having a good time these days, going out, being free. I've been more social in the last month than I have been throughout the entirety of our relationship where we lived together. That's good. No, that's wonderful. But it's not the whole story. The whole story is that Columbus is also the land of failure to me. I need a tshirt that says, "I got dumped in Columbus."
I'm finding myself in Columbus, too, and that's great. I learned that I could be queer again in Columbus. I got the strength to admit my difficulties with my body image to several people in Columbus. I rediscovered my inner nerd in Columbus, and remembered that people find me attractive. And heck, I got hit on by a boy in a sports bar - what could be better? *snicker*
I will move again this summer with a new degree in my hand and (hopefully) a shiny license to practice social work. I'll move again this summer with my old name, the name of my father and my grandparents and my brother, the name that looks like where it came from, the name that walked "off the boat" with my grandfather as a baby. I'll move again this summer with the independence and the free spirit that I lost in Maine, and I'll move again with body piercings and a song in my head and stronger muscles.
But I will leave Columbus with a failed marriage. And I will leave Columbus with severed ties, both to a boy I thought I would at least always be friends with, and a whole host of people I had only recently learned to call 'family.' And I will leave Columbus with 'my' things instead of 'ours,' and that is both a blessing and a curse. I will take my PEZ Dispensers and my smurf figurines and my CDs and my posters and my brand new bed and it will all be mine. Do I take the 'failed marriage' box with the photo albums and the cake top and the cards? Do I take the microwave we bought together? The television? Will I miss the cat I leave behind?
I suppose the lamest part of all of this is that I wonder if A. ever thinks about this stuff, or if he's so wacked and numb that he just goes through his motions, day after day after day, and won't give me a second thought. I suppose he should have thought of that before he asked me to marry him. I /know/ I should have thought of that before I said, 'yes.'
It's okay to think of these things. Even when it's the holiday season. Especially when it's the holiday season. Just as all of us are interconnected in the great web of life, so all of my experiences, feelings, and thoughts are interconnected in the great web of me. And as I can learn to accept my fellow humans for who they are, joyful or not-so-joyful, so I can accept those things in myself.
I'm not unhappy, so there's no need to fill my comments with typed hugs and random sentences of love. It's just been a long time since I've written in here for me and me alone, and I'm wordy and verbose and annoying and you know what? That's cool, 'cause I'm like that. Yeah. Imagine that. :)
The service's focus, believe it or not, was on depression. It's odd to have a service on depression, let alone in the middle of the "joyful holiday season." We're expected to be bright and shiny and festive like the lights we hang, like the presents we exchange, like the snow that falls. However, we all know that a good percentage of us don't feel that way, and we call them "scrooges" or "mopes" and chide them. "Where's your holiday spirit?" we ask, or instead scold, "Let's see some of that holiday cheer!"
The point of the sermon was that this sort of chiding goes against universal acceptance. It goes against loving people for who they are, for what they are. The good things we point out in other people during the holidays exist in them year-round, and the not-so-happy bits we see in people also exist year-round, though for some, the dark and the cold, or distant memories, intensify this. It made me think twice about expecting myself to auomatically love the holidays.
Now, the thing is, I /do/ love the holidays. Presents and lights and family and home-cooked meals and caroling and cards and phone calls and joy joy joy are right up my alley. I love to shop for people, and being able to shop for them all at once is thrilling. But there are moments in the day, and days in the week, and maybe even weeks in the winter where I'm not joyous, and I expect myself to be. I expect others to be. Don't we all?
Not anymore. I spout that we are all inherently worthy individuals, that we are all universally connected to each other, and yet, in this "joyous" season I exclude, point fingers, and look down upon. There are reasons for depression, either situational or biochemical, and that doesn't remove any worth, and that doesn't disconnect anyone from the web of life.
And on that note...
This evening, as I was driving west on the North Outerbelt heading home from Easton with
binkiegirl, I saw one of the things I've come to like about Columbus. At night, driving west on 270, the bridge just west of 315 is all lit up with streetlights, year-round, and it's very pretty. I don't know why a lit up bridge is pretty to me, but it is. I like it. It makes me smile.Columbus, though it's in the midwest and all and has no ocean which I simply cannot tolerate, is a pretty nice place. I like it. It's kept me well the past year and a half, and I will think back on it with fond memories, I'm sure.
...but it wasn't supposed to turn out like this. THIS, this current situation that I'm in, was not supposed to be Columbus to me. Columbus was a new start outside of Maine (Maine being synonymous with depression in the Book of Jude), the first place A. and I would live where we would /only/ be known as married to each other. The first place where 'L--------' was my last name and people would know me as that and it would be my identity. It was to be the first place that would be entirely ours, that we would discover together, and maybe we would buy our first house.
Well, people here in Columbus /do/ know me as Jude L-------, and we did discover Columbus together, but unfortunately, these things are not turning out to be positives. I'm going through the Maine situation in reverse - I'm correcting people and giving them my family name rather than my married name, and I'm finding those places that were ours and deciding they're not great places.
I'm having a good time these days, going out, being free. I've been more social in the last month than I have been throughout the entirety of our relationship where we lived together. That's good. No, that's wonderful. But it's not the whole story. The whole story is that Columbus is also the land of failure to me. I need a tshirt that says, "I got dumped in Columbus."
I'm finding myself in Columbus, too, and that's great. I learned that I could be queer again in Columbus. I got the strength to admit my difficulties with my body image to several people in Columbus. I rediscovered my inner nerd in Columbus, and remembered that people find me attractive. And heck, I got hit on by a boy in a sports bar - what could be better? *snicker*
I will move again this summer with a new degree in my hand and (hopefully) a shiny license to practice social work. I'll move again this summer with my old name, the name of my father and my grandparents and my brother, the name that looks like where it came from, the name that walked "off the boat" with my grandfather as a baby. I'll move again this summer with the independence and the free spirit that I lost in Maine, and I'll move again with body piercings and a song in my head and stronger muscles.
But I will leave Columbus with a failed marriage. And I will leave Columbus with severed ties, both to a boy I thought I would at least always be friends with, and a whole host of people I had only recently learned to call 'family.' And I will leave Columbus with 'my' things instead of 'ours,' and that is both a blessing and a curse. I will take my PEZ Dispensers and my smurf figurines and my CDs and my posters and my brand new bed and it will all be mine. Do I take the 'failed marriage' box with the photo albums and the cake top and the cards? Do I take the microwave we bought together? The television? Will I miss the cat I leave behind?
I suppose the lamest part of all of this is that I wonder if A. ever thinks about this stuff, or if he's so wacked and numb that he just goes through his motions, day after day after day, and won't give me a second thought. I suppose he should have thought of that before he asked me to marry him. I /know/ I should have thought of that before I said, 'yes.'
It's okay to think of these things. Even when it's the holiday season. Especially when it's the holiday season. Just as all of us are interconnected in the great web of life, so all of my experiences, feelings, and thoughts are interconnected in the great web of me. And as I can learn to accept my fellow humans for who they are, joyful or not-so-joyful, so I can accept those things in myself.
I'm not unhappy, so there's no need to fill my comments with typed hugs and random sentences of love. It's just been a long time since I've written in here for me and me alone, and I'm wordy and verbose and annoying and you know what? That's cool, 'cause I'm like that. Yeah. Imagine that. :)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2001-12-09 04:19 pm (UTC)I'm going through the same thing you are (kind of) with a breakup at the holidays. We moved to Columbus (GA) together fully intending to get married in June 2002. We had cats, shared a bed, I took care of her son. Then she broke up with me. All the new friends I had made down here evaporated with her. So did all the comfy feelings of cuddling up with someone at night, because she stopped that months before the breakup. Who gets the fridge and microwave is the big question for me, and I have to find all the rings and necklaces she bogarted. But at least I got to keep the cat.
So, rather than moving on, I'm moving back. Moving back to where my friends are my own, and if I want to go out I know where all the spots are, and where I know I can find a job. Back to a place where I can be inspired, where I can be happy, and where I know I will find people who can understand me. Where I can find another GF who won't ask me to move to her hometown, where I can't find a job to save my life or my impending marriage.
And you're right, it is hard coming around the holidays, when you end up seeing everyone you know and they all ask, "Oh, how are you doing? How's whatshername?" and you have to tell them to their face, "Oh she dumped me. How are you? Still happily married? That's great, Bob. My best to Maggie". I've already become kind of numb from the repetition.
I have an even harder time with the holidays, especially in the deep south, what with my not being christian. And it's not that I'm passively non-christian by being agnostic or atheist. No, my problem is compunded by being a "Satan worshipping, infant raping, blood drinking, goat loving son of a whore" witch. Imagine trying to tell your Catholic boss that you don't celebrate Christmas and trying to explain how Winter Solstice, or "Yule" is like Christmas for witches, and having them say, "Well, doesn't 'Yule' just mean Christmas anyway?" *SIGH* My boss is okay, though. Her priest's daughter is a wiccan, and he told her that when she starts to hear something she doesn't like, to just say, "Strawberrystrawberrystrawberry," and walk away. The funniest part of that is that at one point there were, like, three or four other witches working at the club, and nearly as many regular customers, and we'd get around and start talking about this and that and suddenly hear, "Oh, Jesus! Strawberrystrawberrystrawberry!" as the manager ran off.
I hate this holiday season. First, it's not even my holiday. Second, I can't explain that without running the risk of getting lynched. Third, I never have enough money to get me family presents, which I feel obliged to do, despite the fact that I'ts not even my holiday! (*just had a Clerks moment there, but I'm okay now*)
Never have I seen so much joyous holiday merriment as when I made the mistake of going to the mall to get my hair cut. I almost wrecked my car just trying to get a parking spot, and got to watch all sorts of shiny happy people showing their holiday cheer by engaging in combat shopping and apparently trying to kill each other to get the last cinnamon sugar pretzel, not to mention whatever toy is the superfad this year. Goddess, deliver us from Tickle Me Elmo-itis.
And now I have to pack and move in the middle of this joyous holiday season?
Bah, Humbug.
no subject
Date: 2001-12-09 04:31 pm (UTC)I remember back in the day when I spent a summer in LaGrange, GA (which is right near you in Columbus) that I was exasperated trying to explain to people what paganism was and what it wasn't. Heh. Good luck there, too, and with moving.
Sounds like your plate is pretty full. I hope you get a chance to enjoy a little of the holiday season, but if you don't, hell, that's cool too. But the days will start getting longer when the Wheel turns, and well, that's always a great big plus for me.
The wind blows fierce and cold but I fear not
The sky falls heavy with snow and freezing rain
For now the Wheel has turned to cold from hot
I sorrow not, for spinning brings the springtime 'round again!
My one big holiday blah is anticipating the endless barrage of questions from my own family. It's intolerable enough over the phone (and has been since July), but to do it, repeatedly, in person... ugh. "No, Grandma, we haven't gotten back together." "No, Mom, we're not working things out." "No, Dad, getting married didn't make me straight." Yeah.
Good luck to you. May the season bring you peace.
no subject
Date: 2001-12-09 06:37 pm (UTC)have yourself a holiday.
no subject
Date: 2001-12-10 09:05 am (UTC)"Oh, Jesus! Strawberrystrawberrystrawberry!"
has me giggling uncontrolably. I'll be wishing good things upon you.
Re:
Date: 2001-12-10 11:16 am (UTC)Wicked. Behold, the power of Strawberry!
no subject
Date: 2001-12-09 08:32 pm (UTC)I'm just hugging you 'cause you're a supercool person, and my good twin, and one of the most emotionally with-it people I know. It's so much healthier to be honest with oneself and talk and think about one's feelings, than it is to bottle things up or insist that what you know to be true isn't really true.
*HUGS* 'cause you rock solid, and I love ya. =)
-Wolfie
no subject
Date: 2001-12-10 02:00 pm (UTC)Where is it written that just because it's some ridiculous commercial holiday (or even just the fucking weeks leading to that day) that you're *magically* all happy and shiny?
It's this kind of thinking that sells Prozac and it's ilk. But then, I don't believe in sugarcoating myself for the benefit of others. If my pain disturbs you, turn around and go back into Starbucks.
Having said that, I'm doing okay so far this holiday season. Hope you are too. And on the 'failed marriage' thing...it's not a failure if you learned from it. I've been there, feel free e me if you want to rap about that.
no subject
Date: 2001-12-11 03:01 pm (UTC)I know this in the rational part of my head. Unfortunately, it usually rides shotgun.
Thanks. Thanks a lot.
Re:
Date: 2001-12-12 07:54 am (UTC)So have you heard of 'acting as if'? Basically, keep telling yourself that you know this until your heart listens. It takes a while.
Anyhow, you're welcome!
Heart?
Date: 2001-12-12 07:30 pm (UTC)I do, however, have a rational mind and an irrational mind. But I will have to start acting as if. :)
Re: Heart?
Date: 2001-12-13 07:10 am (UTC)Pardon me, my mistake.