'Tis The Season I've Been Dreading

Oh. Joy. The Holidays are upon us. Deck the halls with fear and trepidation.

Ever since the separation and divorce, I have targeted the holiday season as being a particularly bad one. Not only was I concerned with being alone at times but also that my daughters’ holidays would be ruined with the breakup of their family. I feared eating alone on Thanksgiving since the girls would be with their mother. I worried about feeling guilty about taking my daughters away from their mother on Christmas since they were scheduled to be with me. I despised the notion of decorating my new house because, really, what was the point? And wouldn’t that just make me feel worse?

I envisioned late November and all of December to be decorated with doom and gloom, not boughs of holly. I saw myself sitting lonely in my house longing for the times when I was with my wife and girls, decorating the Christmas tree and singing Christmas carols. In fact, I thought it would be so bad for me that I only took a very small amount of Christmas decorations when I moved out. I thought it would be better for the girls to have them all so they would have the decorations they are used to and I would probably not decorate anyway.

Thanksgiving was either going to be spent down at my parents in Texas or by myself. I thought back to when I was single and was alone for one Thanksgiving due mostly to not having the money to travel anywhere and all my friends having prior plans. I made a turkey dinner for myself. It was sad and pathetic and I assumed that's what I was in store for this year.

Then it occurred to me that none of the above HAD to happen. The type of holiday I was going to have was to be determined by me and how I approached it. If I approached it with the above thoughts, then yes, it would suck. I would be depressed and would be starting 2013 in the worst light possible. I had control over this and I decided I was going to do my best to prevent depression and disaster.

The first thing I did was see if I could spend Thanksgiving with the girls. This, of course, meant having dinner over at my ex-wife’s house. This was something we had discussed early on but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it back then. However, both my ex and I are very mindful of our girls’ feelings about the divorce so we wanted the holidays to be as normal as they could be which meant both of their parents needed to be in the picture. So I am going to have dinner with my ex, my daughters and the people who used to be in my family. Will it be awkward? I suppose it could and probably still will be at least initially but again, the amount of awkwardness is controlled by me. If I want to be standoffish and not talk to anyone and bemoan to myself on how it used to be, then the awkward rate will be high. If I choose to have fun, enjoy the company and most importantly, be with my girls, then it doesn’t have to awkward at all.

And if it started to get that way, well, I’m bringing the wine. 

For Christmas, I am scheduled to have the girls the entire week of Christmas and since Christmas falls on a Tuesday this year that meant I could have them from the weekend before to the weekend after. My plans were to take the girls down to see their grandparents (my parents) and their aunts, uncle, and cousins. I knew my ex wouldn’t be happy about it but it was my right and I couldn’t be concerned with how she felt.

That didn’t last long.

Regardless of how I may have been distant during the last year or so of our marriage, I am generally a thoughtful guy. I try to take other people’s feelings into consideration and I began to do that not only with my ex-wife but with my girls. Separating them from their mom on the first Christmas after they no longer have two full time parents didn’t seem right. I discussed it with my ex and we decided that the girls would spend Christmas Eve with her and that I would come over early on Christmas morning, hopefully before the girls woke up, so both of us could enjoy watching the girls open their presents. Then, the girls and I would head for Texas.

As far as decorating my house, I am planning on doing something. Even if I wasn’t doing it for myself, I needed to do it for the girls. They are over here often and not having any decorations up for them would be unfair. It won’t be as extravagant as years prior, but they (and I) will know it’s the holiday season. I can’t put up a big tree as the only place where one would fit is in the basement or in the dining room. Neither of those spots is very visible so I am putting thought into what I will do. I do know that the outside decorations won’t be as big as before. I won’t be lining my entire roofline with lights but I will put some up. The bottom line is that I need to start building my own set of holiday decorations and new traditions for me and the girls as we move on to our next destination.

I'm sure next year will be different.  An entire year will have passed and who knows where I or my ex wife will be on our journeys but I suspect it won't be as easy to make sure we are all together.  I am totally expecting that and it will be a bridge we will cross when we get there.  For this year, however, focus must be on removing the sadness from the holidays.

It’s funny how I have done an almost complete 180 on my viewpoint for the holiday season and I’m glad I’m forcing myself to make this turnaround. It’s a known fact that the holidays cause depression rates to go up and I firmly believe that is something we can control…or at least I will be making the attempt. Do I think I’ll sail through this time of year without any sadness or feelings of forlornness? No, I’m sure I’ll have my moments, but if I don’t want to forever stain future holidays by letting the 2012 one suck beyond all manner of suckiness, I have to rely on myself to make it right. I think too often people in my situation let their depression get the better of them when it doesn't really have to. It’s not easy and I may find myself writing a blog about how my whole plan failed miserably. I hope that doesn’t happen and if I keep the right attitude, it won’t.

I write this post not only for myself but for others who may be in the same situation. Just because our lives may not be where we thought they would be this time of year doesn’t change the fact that the holidays are a special time. It’s a time for charity, happiness and seeing the world through the eyes of children. To miss out on that because you are basically feeling sorry for yourself is doing a disservice not only to you but to those around you. Forget about the heartache you’ve suffered and go look at Christmas lights. Abandon the thoughts of loneliness and go volunteer at a soup kitchen. I think you’ll find there are others in a lot worse shape than you. If your children aren’t around, “adopt” one at church or a local charity. Buy them presents and know you’ll be making their lives brighter. It’s not in what we do for ourselves that makes the holiday special, it’s what we do for others. I’m choosing to focus on my girls and not on me and I think that will make the season a merry one indeed.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find a Christmas tree I can display in my smallish living room.

 

Izzie Socks

I got a cat and yes, the title of this post reflects his name. 

I believe if you are going to have an animal, you should be creative with the name.  His full name is actually Izzie Cutie Froggy Socks.  I can’t take credit for the full name (and probably don’t want to).  My daughters, 5 and 7, came up with pieces of the name.  My dad came up with Socks because the cat has white paws that contrast with his gray fur.  The girls came up with Cutie and Froggy for …whatever reasons.  Actually, my 7 year old came up with Cutie and makes sense since the cat is a cutie.  My 5 year old came up with Froggy and maybe that makes sense because she’s 5 years old.

For Izzie, I’m not sure if I misheard them but ultimately, I think I came up with Izzie and then strung them together.  So we have the full name, but I’ll probably just stick to the first name mostly and first/last when the mood strikes me. The full name will be reserved for when he is in trouble for pooping on the floor.  “Izzie Cutie Froggy Socks, you better get in here RIGHT NOW!”  

When I was growing up, we always had pets and mostly cats.  We had one dog, Sam the Basset – “Dog of the Desert, Keen of Eye, Swift of Foot” as my dad used to describe him (is it any wonder where I get my pet name fetish?),  and plenty of cats; too many to name and names to embarrassing to repeat here.  When I was on my own, I never had any pets mainly because I lived in apartments that didn’t allow them and I couldn’t afford them (which was more the reason than the bylaws of the apartments I lived in).  When I was married to my first wife, we ended up with two cats and somehow I got custody of them after we divorced  I didn’t mind, though.  When I was dating the woman who would become my second wife, I had to give the cats back to the first wife because the soon-to-be-second wife was very allergic to them.  It was hard but I was in love and the house was much cleaner after the cats were gone. 

So fast forward almost a decade and I am now a cat owner once again.  I considered a dog and would actually love to have one.  With my job, however, I travel and I can’t afford to put him in a kennel every time I have to hit the road.  Outside of that getting real expensive, it just wouldn’t be fair to the dog.  With a cat, however, I could be gone a week and as long as I had a continuous feeder and water, the cat would be fine.

When I first brought the cat home, I couldn’t help shaking the notion that he was a child.  I would tip toe around him while he was sleeping and if I had to go out, I would hurry back to make sure he was okay.  Much like the times I did that with my children, the cat was fine too. (That’s a joke, folks…I never left my kids alone unless it was an emergency trip to the beer store and when I did that, I gave them a broken bottle to protect themselves with). 

People may think I got the cat for my girls, but that’s not necessarily true. Sure, they wanted one and knew they could get one now that they had two houses to go to and one of them didn’t have a highly allergic adult living in it.  Still, I got the cat for me.  Pets are great companions regardless of what type of animal they are…although I suppose living with a grizzly bear might be tricky…especially getting it to go in a litter box but I guess for bears you would have to have indoor woods because you know what they say about bears and woods.  Huh?  Huh?  Get it?  See what I did there?  Heh…anyway…

Now I have little Izzie Socks to join me on my journey to the next destination in life and I’m glad he’s here.  I can now talk to him and it not be as weird as when I was just talking to nobody (but maybe only by a little bit).  Not that it’s all fun and games.  The darn cat barely lets me get any typing done as he likes to crawl up my leg, onto my lap and then onto my desk.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to retype this because he ran across the keyboard.  At one point, my spell checker told me I should have gotten a bird. 

Maybe he wouldn’t need so much attention if he had another cat to play with.  Maybe I’ll get six more. Nah, if I did that, my destination would surely be known:  Alone.  Forever. 

Except for the seven cats and probably never seeing the top of my desk again.

Paths

I’ve always believed that you should never have any regrets in life.  Where you are right now was from the path you walked on to get there.  There are times when we want to say I wish I never did this or didn’t do that, but that’s wasted energy.   You can’t help where you are now but you can, to a certain extent, control where you are going.

Another aspect to this is the belief (or disbelief) that your destiny is predetermined either by God or the Universe or a giant cat that lives in the mountains somewhere.  I’m not entirely sure if I believe this but there is some amount of comfort in thinking it’s true.  Why?  I think it comes out of moments of despair or when life takes you down a road of broken glass and rotting vegetables.  You think, “Why did this happen to me?” and you are told “It’s God’s plan” or “Life is like that” or the ever popular “Shit happens.” 

Shit does happen but we can sit there and smell it or we can move on.  I think it’s entirely too easy to give up or get depressed about your current state of life but the truth is if whatever problems you faced left you alive, then you’re probably going to be okay.  If you stop and dwell on what happened, you’ll get stuck like tires spinning in the mud.  Put that thing in four wheel drive and move out of the muck, man.  There’s a lot more road ahead.

Why am I starting my new blog with this?  Mainly because as of right now, 2012 will go down as probably the worst year in my life.  There are still two and half months to make up for the previous nine and half but I doubt a total comeback is possible.  I’m down 48 to 10 in my game with 2012 and I need more than a few Hail Mary’s to even the score. 

It’s funny because when things were better, I used to comment about some of the turns I took while growing up and what would have happened if I took a left instead of a right.  What if I had stayed in Arizona instead of moving to Texas in the mid 80’s?  What if instead I stayed in California instead of moving BACK to Texas when I did that in the late 80’s?  What if I had more confidence when I was younger when dating and pursued harder the woman who was then the woman of my dreams?  What if I never grew that porn-star moustache I had for most of the 90’s?  What if I never married my first wife? 

These questions were all put aside by simply saying, “Well if I had done that, I wouldn’t be where I am now.”   Those decisions led me to where I was as if it was all planned out.  When life is good, that’s a great feeling to have but when life is less than good, you tend to go back and wonder if you made the right choices. 

And therein lies the problem.  You can’t go back.  You can’t undo the decisions you made so no need to start wondering what would have happened if you made different ones.  Life is life and whether our ultimate destination is known or unknown, it really doesn’t matter because YOU don’t know what is going to happen.  Instead waiting for the sign to change from “Don’t Walk” to “Walk,” just go ahead and walk.

God, the Universe nor that giant cat up in the mountains won’t care if you’re jaywalking.