The Holidays

So the holidays are upon us, yesterday was my birthday and I started the day in a completely wonderful way, taking an old family friend up on an invitation to attend services at the church she attends. I'm relatively strong in my faith, but that's a strength that can only go so far without being fed inspiration and getting a sense of all I forget to be thankful for, and the fact that there is a world of people out there that go so far beyond my own self-involvement. One of my things on my list of wants, is to become more grounded in my faith, so yesterday and a few other events in my life over the last two months seems to be pointing me towards doing just that.

The older I get, the less I care about receiving gifts on any occasion, and that includes birthdays. Each year as middle age strengthens its foothold on the boy trapped in a man's body, I tell myself that on my birthday I will be good to myself and build myself up. When I was younger, that often meant over indulging in a drum shop or a record store or clothing store. Yesterday I was happy to visit a church and find myself welcomed and appreciate the message that was being given yesterday. It was also nice to see a woman who was good friends with my older sister in high school - which was a long time ago.

Back then I was the younger and probably annoying brother of my older sister, and while I don't have a perfectly clear memory of those days, I do recall forcing my presence on my older sister and her friends at times - but that's what younger siblings do and that was far too long ago to feel guilty about now. I hadn't seen my sister's friend, Becky, for thirty years - and I have no idea the specifics of the last time I saw her, only a vague memory of when that had to have been. Earlier this year I reconnected with another old friend and I hadn't seen him for thirty years - it's a pretty good feeling and while age doesn't seem to register so much to me, time, at least when I stop to realize large periods of it like in these two cases, does indeed register.

These days I try to be mindful of all I have to be grateful for - and no matter how I may want things to change in my life, on my worst days there is still so much to be completely thankful for. Some things get overlooked entirely, yet if any one of them were removed from my life, I'd feel a huge loss. I'm a firm believe in being thankful and doing so invites more good into our lives. As we head into Thanksgiving, I appreciate the message from yesterday morning, I appreciate things like reconnecting with people after 30 years, I appreciate the many wonderful people I have as friends and my family, I appreciate the person who chose to spend the day with me yesterday and I was overwhelmed by how many others offered to spend any part of the day with me. As I told my mother yesterday, I had no idea I would be as popular as I felt yesterday. I'm thankful for all of this and more and I hope that I don't lose sight of any of the multitude of things I have to be grateful for in my life on a daily basis.

While I have long since grown tired of the major marketing campaign that Christmas has become, I do love the season. I'm a little sad for the days of being a kid in school and how having two weeks off from school seemed to make Christmas itself last that long. It's not about presents any more for me, at least not in terms of me getting them, all I want is to be able to see anyone and everyone that matters to me and that gets harder to do with each passing year and how spread out my family and friends are these days. I leave my family on Christmas night, a grown man and one that usually has to return to work the next day - and that makes me long for the Christmas nights I had as a child when I'd go to bed and feel like Christmas and all the wonderful memories I have of it as a child, would continue for a few more days.