Gifts That Matter

I love this time of year; hanging with the kiddos, seeing generosity and random kindness on the street, dwelling on gratitude, the overall wind-down of yet another year and the reflection and memories that come with that, and the anticipation of a bright, shiny new one.  Man, those are the things I live for.

But I am beginning to be oh-so-tired of some of the parts of this season.
Holidays are celebrations, to me, ceremonies to mark the passage of another chunk of this great big ball of life.  This hasn't been the best year in the casa de Vanci, on the surface.  We've had lots of sickness, lots of issues to deal with, lots of pain (both the good, growing kind and the bad, I can't fix this kind.)  We've also had some goodness, sure, but a lot of the goodness that's come our way has been of the silver lining variety, so it's been bittersweet.  That's okay, it's all just part of being messy human beans, and I like that about us; we don't have to pretend to be anything other than we are.

I learned long ago to take the sweet however it comes and to make it my own.  I grew up in a world where there was never a good feeling without strings attached, there was never even a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down, there was very little kindness or compassion and what limited amount there was certainly wasn't freely given to me.  In fact, I provided a lot of that care for others, whether I wanted to or it was taken from me.

It's hard for me to find balance between my natural inclination to reach out to those around me and show them that they matter to me and my overwhelming desire to isolate and insulate myself from the world at large.  I'm not depressed and I'm not afraid of people, but I'm starting to become... well, disgusted is the word for it, with the people around me and their bastardization of this lovely season.

I cannot count how many times I have been asked this week, "Are you ready for Christmas?"
I respond the same way every time, "Sure I am.  Why can't it be tomorrow?"  And I smile.
And I'm stared at because this has become a weird answer to that question in a society that values price-tags over time spent.
The PC and correct answer to the question above, of course, is to launch into a monologue about how many gifts I have left to purchase, and to bitch about how expensive everything is.  I hear this exchange all day long.  And I don't get it.

As a group my co-workers and I decided that we wanted to do something for our boss.  There was an email chain circulating for quite a while with suggestions for this single, well-off, fifty year old woman who happens to be intensely private with her personal life.  A wine basket?  A cheese basket?  A chocolate basket?

Really?  Why not just collect the money, shred it up into confetti and give her that?  What's she going to do with yet another basket of crap?  She can afford her own wine, cheese and chocolate, trust me folks.
So I suggested that we make a charitable donation in her name.
Which was like the frickin' shot heard round the world for a couple of minutes there.  Dead stop.  Then everybody chimed in about what a great thing that would be.
Like it was a new idea, like no one had ever (gasp) done it that way before, like such a thing was unheard of.    So that's what we did and she was touched to tears by it.  It mattered to her that we had found a charity we knew she would support, and that we'd thought to do something for her and for others.

It's not lost on me that my focus on gifts that matter is born, at least partly, of my upbringing as an ACoN.  N's in general suck at gifts, and Nparents tend to use gift-giving as yet another weapon against their children, golden and scapegoat alike.  They use gifts like they use everything, to their benefit.  Growing up, the quantity and quality of gifts given to one child or another was in direct proportion to that child's conformity to their allotted role in my house.  When I was a good little scapegoat, a quietly acquiescent of the abuse victim, I got nicer things, or at least larger piles of middle of the road things.  When I began to speak out, stand up, make waves, the piles of things got smaller and the gifts I received became things that Nsis wanted or that GCYB had asked for - except that I'd get the generic brand or the size too small.  On one notable occasion, ENF gave me a giant box of his used pots and pans (dusty and wrapped in newspaper,) as my only Christmas gift.  This was at the last Christmas we spent with them, and was after I'd started making too much noise about what needed to change in the Clan.  Point taken.  At some point during a lifetime of this type of abuse, gifts stopped mattering much to me, no wonder.

And they don't count for much now, except that the gifts I receive now from the real people in my real life of a loving family of choice are often things that show how much I mean to the people around me.  DH and the DD's always get me things like sweatpants and soft blankets and warm socks and slippers.  On the surface that might not seem like much, but it's incredibly thoughtful as I am always cold.  (Right now it's snowing.  Again.  Nineteen inches accumulated in twenty-four hours.  TW, come take your weather back!)  My BIL and SIL always get me something that speaks to me; a book, a magazine subscription that supports one of my hobbies, etc.  They are gifts that say, Vanci we know you and we think you'll like this!

I try to do the same for all the people in my life, too.  I spend time thinking about them and what I know of them and trying to envision what will make them feel just a little more special or let them know that I see them, hear them, support them, love them for their very own skin and everything it holds in.  That's what makes the gifts matter to me, not the price tag or the trend du jour or what the Jones's have.   That's what takes the crassness out of the commercialization of the generous season, I guess.

So that's what I keep coming back to, what are the gifts that matter?

For me, the greatest gift I've ever been given was the support of the people around me as I've extricated myself from the Crazymaker Clan and stayed out.  They don't really get it, most of them, what it's like to live through that and to get away from that, but they don't have to.  They just love and support me anyway, even when they don't understand.

And the greatest gift I've given myself?  The peace of No Contact, of course, and permission to enjoy it.
So am I ready for Christmas number six without the Narcs and Minions?
Oh yessirree Bob.  Let's move it up to tomorrow.

Love,
Vanci

Change and Crustaceans

I've been thinking about myself - not in a weird self-centered mirror, mirror on the wall type of way - more along the lines of end of the year reflection upon who I am these days and what I like about me and what I'd like to change.

At this busy, busy time of year and with these thoughts rattling around between my ears, it occurs to me; change is hard work.  I mean really hard.  Over the last four years I feel like I've become the emotional equivalent of a marathon runner.  I've worked so hard to reclaim my inner Vanci, and whether that's meant recognizing that alcohol was killing me instead of my problems and therefore drying out or going trough the painful steps in tearing away the wrong-taught NFOO family system that I was starting to duplicate in my FOC and replacing it with a better way, I have trudged the road.

Have I arrived at my destination?  Nah.  But I'm a lot further on the road to freedom and happiness than I'd have ever thought I could be.  That progress, that hard-won and fought for progress is a direct result of me changing me.  Regardless of why I needed to change or how I did it, man oh man alive, it's been worth it.

And that willingness, I think, is the key that has unlocked so many previously forbidden and hidden doors.  My desire to be better has in so many ways translated into my ability to do and be so.  It occurs to me that my desire and willingness is what separates me from the Narcs.

They've proven to me over and over again that what they want is not to make themselves better.  They don't want to make their relationships with me or anyone else better.  What they want is to keep me on their level, to get me back into functioning in the role that they assigned me and that I chose to assume for so long because it makes them feel better, no matter the cost to me.  I've wanted to change me for the better, and they've wanted me to change back to what they think is better for them.  Not only is their desire implausible, it just doesn't create any good results.

DH has told a truly insightful story to our DDs on many occasions - to eye-rolls every time - of the Crabs in the Pot.  Usually he tells it when we are discussing some friend or group of friends that the DDs are having trouble with or who are having trouble themselves.  It goes like this:
If you put a bunch of crabs in a pot of water and slowly bring it to a boil, they'll all die.  In that space of time where the water is starting to heat, they should all be able to crawl out, but they don't.  Why?  Because as soon as one crab gets above the fray and heads for the top, the other crabs in the pot grab onto it with their crabby little claws and pull the potential survivor back in.  And they all die together.

*Insert melodramatic teenage eye-roll here*

He's right, though, and I love that the moral of the story when he tells it is this; to survive the other crabs in the pot, you have to NOT GET IN THE POT in the first place.  You have to change the entire scenario.  You have to change.  You have to be willing to be separate, apart from, isolated, lonely, cast out, even if it means you're shivering in the cold for a while while the rest of the crabs are riding out that apparent bubble bath.
The result of that change is different for everyone, I assume.  But I know that for me, it's meant freedom.  Joy.  Peace.  Laughter.  Looking in the mirror and liking what I see.  Having genuine relationships and being an authentic person.  What fantastic rewards have come to me just for being willing to change!

I'm still open and willing to healthy change that leads me in a better direction, and they're not.  Sad as that may be for them, I think I'll stay out of the pot nevertheless.  Indefinitely.

Love,
Vanci

P.S.  No crabs were hurt in the writing of this post.