The shrinks all say our problems leave scars that heal but never completely leave us, and I am learning every day of my life that this is so. Every time I think i have solved a problem and left it behind, I am humbled and dragged to the earth, wings breaking into a thousand pieces. I keep vowing to let go, but they won’t let go of me.
All I can do is be aware, and then be more aware.
The holidays, I see, are a scar that will never fully leave me, and I have learned hat this is very true of many others.
But it is not true of everyone. I have come to see this as the great holiday divide: the space between the Perfect Holiday and the Not Perfect holiday. Lots of people have, or say they have, perfect holidays. Who else would be buying all that stuff?
I am not a Perfect Person, and have never had a Perfect holiday. I have never had one that is not shrouded in angst, anxiety, pressure and guilt. Maria shares this experience, and we are determined this Christmas to have our first grief and guilt -free holiday. Our hearts are pure, but the odds are long.
We will be at home, with one another and the animals, our books and our music and each other. No gifts, no dinners, no family. Maybe some friends, if we can find any who share our Not Perfect experience.
What do I mean by a Perfect Holiday? You know, the Disney one, the Rockwell one. The happy family, trembling for Santa, brimming with expectation. The beautiful meal, the radiant decorations, the carefully hung wreaths and balls, the perfect and beautifully wrapped gifts, the weeks of planning and excitement, the gathering of the loving clan at the big table, lots of laughter and gobs of love.
No wonder so many people get depressed at this time of year. Who, I wonder, actually lives like this? There must be many, or even the marketers couldn’t get away with it, but then I wonder if this idea of the Perfect holiday isn’t just a vast marketing creation. Disney World is always sold out at Christmas, for just between $5,000 and $10,000 dollars a week. I would give a lot of my own money to see the Jewish radical Jesus Christ at Disney World, I imagine he would lead a mob of angry Not Perfect torch-bears right into the Magic Kingdom or the new blocks-long Disney Gift Shot to settle some scores.
But I am being fatuous and argumentative, even hypocritical
I have loved many of my visits to Disney World, I know so many people love it dearly.
It is no longer the place for me, but that is my problem, not theirs. Nobody is forcing anybody to go, and I have no business telling anyone else where to go. The last time I was there, a couple of years ago, I realized that there was no one anything like me anywhere to be seen. I turned to Maria one morning, holding the free Mouse stickers and Smiley pins the cashier had just given me, and asked “do you see us anywhere here?”
No, she said, of course not, where do you think you are? It was a shock to me. I thought everyone could be get into Perfect World, even me.
I think the issue is that Christmas, which has evolved steadily over the years into a vast commercial balloon that blocks out the light, has become a bar that is just too high for the Not Perfect People. I don’t have a Perfect family, not even a perfect wife, even though I love her dearly. A Perfect Wife would have to be like Minnie Mouse and while I once had a crush on her, I wouldn’t want to marry her,
And I would be horrified if Maria ever described me as a perfect husband. That is not likely. Love is often as much about what we overcome and overlook as it is what we have. I’m lucky that is so.
Most families, of course, are not perfect. They are quarrelsome, divided and fractious. At least one person is unfuffilled, at least one more is furious, jealous, or stifled. Most people are not perfect, they are often unhappy, filled with anxieties and resentments. Most people can’t cook those gorgeous meals or find those perfect presents or start shopping in July to make sure everyone is covered. You could argue that nobody should have to do those things, but that argument was lost a long time ago
Speaking for myself, I believe quite strongly that there are no Perfect Lives, I say this with respect to the Perfect People, it is not for me to define others. And I am perhaps just jealous. Another club I can’t get into.
I assume, perhaps unfairly, a certain measure of hypocrisy and denial in the very idea. Humans are not meant to be perfect, so I am always suspicious that the Perfect Holiday people are blind or lying. Sooner or later, life comes to all of us. This may say more about me than them. As I wrote above, my problems never completely go away, I just tend to rediscover them.
My own Far From Perfect Family was just as miserable and unfulfilled at Christmas as they were on every other day, and I was always overwhelmed by the excessive piles of gifts and the awful crash that followed, when normal life and the horrors of gym and school loomed. I remember bawling over a Hardy Boy book, a present, because I wanted to be one of them so much more than I wanted to be me.
I sometimes imagine what might happen if Disney created the Not Perfect Family Lodge at Disney World, a special $200-a-night lodge where real people could fight, throw their dirty laundry around, scream and throw food at each other, storm out, cook dry turkey, hang tacky shiny balls from Wal-Mart, and be profoundly disappointed in their thoughtless and useless gifts. You know, like the Christmas most people have.
I think the sadness of the holidays often comes from what we don’t have, what we can’t have, what is rubbed into our Not Perfect faces for months before and during the holidays. Everyone says it brings our childhood back, but I do not want my childhood back, I’ve spent years in therapy trying to forget it.
We look in the mirror at Christmas, and many of us always come up short. We live in a marketed world, we can hardly tell any more what is true and what is for sale. I know many Not Perfect people easily swept up in the expectations of the Perfect Holiday. They are often the biggest believers, crying at the very thought of joy.
Like my blessed mother, the holidays bring with them a certain amount of toxic guilt. What is wrong with us, for not being perfect? For not getting it? For not feeling joyous and transformed? It can’t be them, they are Perfect. It has to be us. That is, I think, how it works.
This year, in our never ending quest for a better way, Maria and I will celebrate out utter lack of perfection. We will create our own truth, or try. We do not have the perfect lives, and have little use for them. The idea gives both of us the hives. We will find the center of our true selves, and revel in it, give thanks for it, accept who we are. Somewhere in there, I’ll read a bit about Jesus Christ, just to keep my toes in the water.
We’ll see if that works. If it doesn’t, we can try Disney World again. At least it’s warm there.