The Most Wonderfull (Awful) Time of the Year

Finally sent all my packages off with the husband to ship, and I'm taking a few minutes for a quick vent session blog post. Because I cannot afford therapy.

Up until this week, I really was enJOYing the season. However, this week was a blur. Did I shower? Not sure, and I certainly didn't sleep or eat much. I had originally planned to ship my gifts off on Wednesday. Problem was, I hadn't bought all the gifts that I needed to send at that point.

Thursday rolls around, and I buy what I need and plan to wrap it ALL that night. But it's pretty hard to wrap gifts with NO tape. I have no tape because I have scissor-stealing minions, who don't bother to TELL me when they use THE LAST OF THE TAPE!!!

Friday, I get ready to take the kids to school. My son is still wearing pajama pants at 8:00 in the morning. Why isn't he dressed for school? Because his jeans were in the washing machine, despite the fact that I had asked him if his pants were put in the dryer at like 7:00. My almost 11-year-old daughter, who is usually very resourceful and will put the clothes in the dryer if she needs pants, is wearing the DIRTY pants she had on the day before. Seriously? What did I do to deserve this?

So after loosing all my Christmas joy, yelling at my kids, making them both cry, and dropping them off at school an hour late (yes, I felt like the worst mom in the whole entire world), I go to Walgreens to buy tape....and a few more gifts. Get home and sit down to start wrapping and my alarm goes off. It's time to get the children from school. Yes. I have an alarm for that.

I spent the afternoon and late into the evening wrapping gifts and packing (cramming) them into the Priority Mail boxes I had previously picked up from the post office. (I felt really good about that proactive move too.) Went to bed when I just couldn't hold my head up any longer. But. I only had 3 of 7 boxes ready to go.

Saturday, this morning, I spent another 5 hours getting gifts - the thoughtful ones that I started working on a month ago but never finished - ready to go in the mail. I begged my husband to take the packages to the Post Office for me, because I still have brushed my teeth and am in my pajamas. He agreed. Hallelujah! The packages are all ready and the Christmas joy is starting to return, even though my living room looks like this:

But then. He starts YELLING AT ME! Actually, he may have just been talking, and it might have been me who started yelling. But he was saying the boxes needed to be put in bags so he could carry them, and that he won't make it to the PO in time, because I WAITED TO THE LAST MINUTE.

I'm sorry. WHAT?! Ummm...DO NOT EVEN! I think I have been baking and making gifts, and decorating, and shopping online and in ACTUAL STORES, and recording every purchase on a SPREADSHEET so I don't go over budget, for the past 3 WEEKS. I picked out all the gifts. I wrapped all the gifts. Including HIS own sister's presents. I have not gone to bed before midnight all week long. Wait. I lied a bit. He bought 2 of the gifts. Online. And it was MY gift idea for our children. Easy.

But before you think I am calling my husband lazy or something, let me say he is wonderful and helpful. He went grocery shopping after working a long day last night and didn't get home until 8:00 pm. He did the dishes when I asked him to this morning, since we had no clean ones. He made me breakfast and coffee - without me asking. He is Sweet and Helpful. He will be making Christmas dinner. Love him for those things and so much more.

However, when it comes to Christmas presents, it's all on me. Every year. I wrap every gift by myself and usually late into the night. I go to the stores and stand in the lines at the PO to ship several boxes, which no one put into bags so that I could carry them easily. So, when my husband dared to say one package might not make it, because I could not fit it into a bag, I kind of lost it. I YELLED, "It better make it!!!" loud enough for all the neighbors to hear and slammed the door. Then mumbled a few curse words under my breath. Hey, I never said I was perfect.

Shipping packages is the most awful part of this wonderful time of the year for me. I love to give. I really, really do. I enjoy making or picking out gifts for my family and friends. I even enjoy wrapping them up into pretty presents. BUT. The whole gifting thing isn't really what Christmas is about, and when it takes up so much of our attention and time and stresses us out, it makes me wonder, is it all really worth it? Right now I just want to get back to focusing on baby Jesus. Back to singing "Holy Night" and "Come Let Us Adore Him" in a darkened sanctuary, illuminated with candles, where I can sense Jesus. For me, Christmas is feeling the presence of God, alive, among us, and the whole shipping presents thing typically steals any such feeling from me. Glad it's done. Hopefully. Not sure, since my husband hasn't come back yet. Maybe he is returning my presents.

Wishing you and your family Christmas Joy and Presence.

Have yourself a Merry little Christmas,

Ashley

On Being Superior

I usually blog about what's weighing on my heart.  But I have been silent about a certain issue until now. Not because it hasn't been on my heart. It has. I care. I really do. I just wasn't sure I should say anything. I've stated it before, sometimes Silence is Golden.

I told myself I'm not qualified to voice an opinion on this particular issue. So, I have been quiet. I have been listening and reading and trying to understand. And I mostly agree with myself about being quiet. But, I also know that maybe I was partly avoiding the issue because it is hard. It is sticky and sensitive, and it makes me feel guilty. And it makes people say and do hurtful, angry things.

But. Ferguson. Protests. White cops. Black men. Racial tension.

I didn't feel qualified to speak about what's happening in Ferguson or about any of the other recent news stories of black men killed by white police officers - for several reasons. Most importantly, because I am not a young black man nor am I a police officer. I have never walked in their shoes or even walked beside them. I've never been in a situation where I had to choose to protect my own life by taking another's. And I have never been judged as a threat or criminal based on the darkness of my skin color. And, I wasn't THERE. I don't know the truth about what happened. I haven't personally read the case files, and I haven't seen or heard all the evidence. But, I know this to be the truth: in EVERY situation or fight or argument, there are two different accounts of what occurred, and then, there is the TRUTH. Everyone sees a situation through their own past experiences. This is just how we humans are wired. ALL of us. Red, Yellow, Purple, Pink, Brown, Black, or White. We react and make decisions based on our experiences, depending on how we have been treated as white, black, brown, mixed, or multi-colored people.

As a white female, I don't know the truth of what it is to experience life as black or as a male. I realized yesterday that - besides my handsome Jamaican brother-in-law - I don't even have any black friends. Not because I don't want to have any, but I just don't. I currently live and have pretty much always lived in a predominantly white community. We don't have any black neighbors, and I rarely see anyone of color out shopping at the local market. Based on a report from 2000, the black or African American population in Gloucester is .6% and goes up to .9% for those who are biracial. I've discovered that here "minority" refers to anyone who is not Italian. So, my opportunity to have an open conversation about racial tensions with someone of a different race in my town is slim.

To be perfectly honest, race isn't usually something I think a lot about. I guess you could say that's my "white privilege" showing. Probably. I would like to think it's because I don't care. Not that I don't care about inequality among races, but because the color of someone's skin or a person's racial heritage makes no difference in how I would want to treat them.

However, racism is not something I've never dealt with personally. Because unlike Santa Clause, it most certainly DOES exist in the 21st century. Unfortunately, the ugliness and ignorance of racism has caused friction and anger within my own extended family. When my younger sister married a black man, a few of my Southern-bred relatives had unkind things to say about interracial relationships. Personally, I cannot understand their unfounded bias, especially since our clan has stirred in many (way too many to list) nationalities into our own hereditary pot. My own husband, who is a hybrid Mexican, Spanish, Italian, was accepted despite his Latino roots. So, it just makes no sense to me. What is the basis of their prejudice - skin pigment? Really? How completely insane.

I can only attribute their feelings to long threads of lies, which have wrapped around inadequate people, desperate to feel superior. The Desire for Superiority. Such an incredibly degenerating human quest. Feeling we are better than others based on the color of our skin or on our cultural heritage or religious background or the quality of our clothes or the size of our house or the cost of our cars. Ridiculousness. Wreckage. This hole in our human souls where the desire for superiority and importance exists is the birthplace of violence and racism and hatred.

Racism, sexism, ageism. They all emerge from our desire to be better, more powerful, more in control. And we will not rid our country of them until we fully submit to the truth of equality. The TRUTH OF EQUALITY - we are all created equal with the right to Life. The white cop and the black man and the white mother and the black mother all cry tears of sorrow and feel the devastation when a child is taken as a result of any kind of violence. So why can't we end it? Why are there riots and protests going on all over our country in 2014, 150 years after slavery was abolished and 50 years after desegregation?

Because racism keeps being taught. Racism does not exist among children unless they are taught by society to shun or disapprove of people who look different. My daughter's first school friend to come sleep over was a little black girl, who Ali still remembers as the girl with brown skin, because for some reason we cannot remember her name, and the term "black" used in reference to a person of color just isn't part of her vocabulary. Two of her best friends are from very different cultural backgrounds than her own, but she never even considered not being friends with them. And, my children never once questioned the fact that their uncle has darker skin than their own. They just know he is fun, because he plays with them and likes football and fishing and has a cool house. The fact that my nephew has curly black hair and beautiful caramel-colored skin, which is so different from their own, means absolutely nothing to them. And it shouldn't.

And that's why I decided that I had been quiet long enough. Because no matter what the circumstances that led to the death of Michael Brown that summer night in Ferguson, the problems and sickness of racism in our country exist, and we need to keep having honest, loving conversations until we have completely eradicated this disease. We all need to give up on anger and resentment and denial and strive for compassion and understanding and acceptance.

As for this privileged white girl, I know that I will never be able to fully comprehend or understand the feelings of outrage and frustration and injustice that black people in this country feel when they hear that an "unarmed black man" was shot and killed by the police. But I do know that I feel shame and guilt for the reasons behind those feelings of outrage. And I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. And I care about this kind of pain. And I promise to teach my children differently. I promise to try my damnedest to look beyond skin color or cultural background to see the heart of a person first.

To all the police officers who are feeling hurt and taken for granted: thank you. Thank you for your service and for being brave enough to step out into hard situations - dangerous situations which might mean the end of your own life or the life of another. I can't imagine wearing the weight of that responsibility.

This is what I have learned: The only superior attribute ANY human can actually posses is the ability to EMPATHIZE with others. A person's ability to consider another with concern and kindness without regard for status or color or title makes them worthy of the label SUPERIOR.  

So, let's be that kind of SUPERIOR. Always.

Love,

Ashley