Belated Christmas Post

Christmas was, well, like a 7 out of 10 this year. Lucy was sick. I didn't really get to stuff myself to the point of needing pants-extenders because someone was always interrupting me. We had a tragedy in the family (not death). The Christmas Eve meal was just meh. The kids didn't totally freak out about the Santa gifts.

But there was lots of good too. Snuggles and kisses and pretty dresses. No one fought and ran upstairs crying. The Dog and I moved the couch and TV into the half-done basement and decided that sweaters and a space heater were a fair trade off for having more space and no money. (I'm still holding out for a Snuggie and some duvet slippers from Restoration Hardware though...)

There was time with the people I love the most in the world. Cousins and aunts and uncles. There was a stay-over visit from Uncle C and nights of Lego Rock Band (a karaoke machine in disguise). There was the day we took out my former neighbour from the halfway house across the street for breakfast, filled his fridge with food and then cried as we listened to his grateful message later that day.

There was a date to see Sherlock Holmes and lots of kissing and bum-pinching and appreciating and I love yous. There were home-cooked meals lovingly prepared by yours truly, who can be a fantastic cook when she isn't rushed at the end of her work day. There was a rare girls' day with my mom, sis and 80-year-old aunt to see Nine (perhaps the first and last outing for these two pairs of sisters).

There was my son discovering the joys of Yellow Submarine on vinyl and announcing that "Hey Bulldog" is his new favourite song, while Loogoo jumped up and down screaming "My SONG!" every time "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" came on. And short of a two-year-old with a fever and a cough, there was good health and bright, shiny faces.

We are blessed. We have no idea, each day, just how good we have it. I am grateful for this life. I am working hard to have it. And I'm learning to love it all. Even the peeling paint and plaster. Even the nights where I have to sleep next to little people who have trouble breathing. Even when I cry because new family dynamics dredge up ghosts from the past I thought I'd dealt with.

My homey, Dr. Zee, told me this mantra a while back. When I first heard it, I thought that she was quacked, but now I'm using it and I think I get it. "This is shitty. It must be good." Think on that peeps. I think I was almost there when I discovered my corn diamonds analogy.

************************

Here are three photos that exemplify the past three Christmasses. Enjoy!

Christmas 2007: New baby + whiny toddler = GAH!

Christmas 2008: Perfection

Christmas 2009: 7 out of 10

See you in 2010!

On cheating and the fallibility of Mother's wisdom

I was sharing some good news about a friend of mine with my mom today, when the conversation turned into something that exemplified just how different we are.

My friend, who went through a separation and divorce in the past two years, left us a message last night where he sounded absolutely buoyant. I mentioned that he might be coming home for Christmas and that we were all excited. (My entire family LOVES when Uncle C comes to town!)

My mom got one of those "I'm going to tell you something" looks on her face. And this is what that amounted to.

Mom: "Never leave your husband alone with single friends."
Me: "Oh really. And why would that be?"
Mom: "Because single friends lead married men down the wrong path."
Me (furious now): "My husband is not like that."
Mom (needing to be right): "Every woman thinks that. Trust me."

OK, that last cliche kind of rings true, very few women who have been cheated on will say, "I saw it coming. I always suspected him to be the type." But this is irrelevant here. And I don't mean to sound high and mighty, but the only thing my husband is ever deceitful about is smoking the occasional cigarette. If he so much as has a crush on another woman, he tells me. He's just NOT like that.

I can't stress this enough. It would kill him to do that. Not because of some allegiance he feels to me, but because the stain that would leave on his moral character, on his own image of himself. I know this, because I come from a past with a big affair in it, so I have grilled my husband to death working through my trust issues.

Me: "Mom, J wouldn't do that, OK? He just wouldn't."
Mom: "Just listen to me and don't let them go out alone."

I let them go out alone plenty during C's visit this summer. Their time together consisted of a mini-reunion with boys from high school, a comic book convention and more drinking and talking. When my husband is drinking, there is no one that can come between him and his beer (something I've had to keep an eye on over the years). All he cares about is The Party. He is not interested in the sex option.

One of the first times we were at a house party together, I tried to push him into an empty closet. Him: "What are you doing?"
Me: "Trying to get you in the closet. Wink wink."
Him (confused): "But the party's out there..."

People, this was very early in our relationship when we were still pretty hot and heavy. The Party is a thing of utmost respect -- it's sacred to my husband. He wants to contribute to the "a good time was had by all" and then some. He knows he has the power to make any party legendary. It's truly a gift.

My mom sees only his Y chromosome. She is insistent; I am annoyed.

Me: "OK, so you'd like me to believe that if he goes out with C, chances are he'll cheat?!"
Mom (realizing she's calling into question an honourable man's character): "No, it's not J I'm worried about, it's that the friend will encourage."

Right, so C has gone through a divorce, watched his wife leave town with some long-haired dude, and all he's thinking is, "Let me get back to Toronto so I can take J out and get him to ruin his marriage too."

My mom wouldn't drop it. The madder I got, the more she needed to be right. Single friends = bad in her mind. When I'd had enough, I regretfully took a low blow.

Me: "YOUR husband didn't have any friends at all -- so how do you explain that then?"

I just needed to stop this crazy theory. I know there are lots of points in one's life where you think your parents were wrong and then realize they were right, though it kills you to admit it. But I had to draw the line here.

Me: "J is just absolutely, in now way, like that Mom. When he and C are together, they want to celebrate their 20 year friendship. They want to talk nerdy stuff and old times and love the fact that they both wear their hearts on their sleeves. You just don't know him like I do."

It reminded me of something I've mentioned before. I got it in a fortune cookie or horoscope or something and it rang true. "Your need to be right supercedes your need to get along." Now I know where I got that habit from. Now I know how to turn it off in myself when I see it coming (most of the time). I only wish I could teach my mom the same.

My husband's favourite motto goes something to the effect of, "When you've done something right, people won't know you did anything at all." I love this so much. It means that we shouldn't constantly be seeking praise or approval, that we should just be content in the knowing. We don't have to wave our "rightness" or our success in the face of others.

It also means that we should just be good "for goodness sake" and not for fame or glory or for "I told you so." And that's why I love this man -- because he doesn't need a blog or a life coach or therapist to figure this out, he's already got it inside of himself.

Can you spot a cheater? Is every man hard-wired to be unfaithful? I used to think so too, after my dad betrayed us all, but J and I have worked so incredibly hard to build my trust up, to make me believe in good, honest men... I just can't see either of us throwing that away now. (He's far from perfect -- because, well, perfect doesn't exist. But he fits me perfectly.)

Anyway Internets, am I wrong? Does my mom know something I don't?

Bad Romance

"Oh fuck, I took my driver's licence out to apply for my passport and I must have forgotten to put it back in my wallet."

"Sorry ma'am, I can't serve you."

I was rather flattered to be in a stadium of 10,000 Lady Gaga fans, most of whom looked like they should have me as their chaperone, and be denied alcohol. The sign on the bar said something to the effect of anyone who looks under age 30. Woot!

My friend Big J was also ID-less, so we turned to find an unsuspecting part of the bar so my baby sister could sneak us drinks. That's when I saw him.

He was my toxic on again, off again love affair for nearly four years. And I still can't say hello or acknowledge that I know him when I see him.

This burns me up a bit. Because by not even saying hello, am I showing him that he still has an effect on me? Or does it burn me up because he still does?

My heart caught in my throat to see him. So handsome once, he had gained a significant amount of weight and lost A LOT of his beautiful hair. And he was wearing a tomato red Ed Hardy shirt. NO. A douchebag shirt, as my sister remarked.

My girlfriends were laughing at him. It was always a sport amongst them, so much did they detest this guy, so that night was no different. And I have to admit that at first, I felt smug. I had just been carded and here he was, looking horrible.

Then I felt like a shit. What if he was ill? What if the hair loss and weight gain were due to some sort of treatment or drug therapy? Part of me just wanted to rush over to him, to hold him, to help him. It's so weird, I thought, we had sex once (or two hundred times) and I can't even look you in the eye now.

I loved him, I convinced myself. Loved the idea of him, the idea of what he could be, of our potential. But we were wrong, wrong, wrong in every way -- except physically. At 18 I was tired of being a virgin and he was the first hip-looking suburbanite to ever really take an interest in me. He dressed well, watched Fashion Television and I wasn't embarassed to introduce him to my friends. At first.

The concert was beyond fun, but I couldn't shake the guilty feeling. Why hadn't I just said hello? I have no need to fear him anymore. I know he wouldn't say hello with my sis and Big J there -- he knows they hate him. But why wasn't I the bigger person?

"What would that accomplish?" my sister chastized in the taxi home. "It would just be about how awesome your life is now, and nothing good ever comes of that." My baby sister is wiser than me at times. She was right, it would have been a pissing match, except I can't help but suspect his tales would be fabricated, etched in bullshit.

He was always on the verge of something; always about to do that great big thing -- but those ideas never materialized into anything. When Facebook first became a playground for adults, he emailed me. He sounded genuinely proud and happy for the way my life turned out. He said he was opening a store any minute now, but I just couldn't believe him. He had commitment and follow-through issues in the past -- to say the least. But why didn't I give him the benefit of the doubt?

I frequently gave him the benefit of the doubt in the past. I wanted to believe that he was good inside, that he didn't mean to hurt me. I caught him cheating on me only once for sure (a story that will go in my book). But over the years I would frequently get messages from the grapevine, telling me he was a dog and I shouldn't trust him.

One night, at a house party in a really rough part of the city, I was drunk and pushed into a room by a strange boy claiming to be him. I managed to get away and when I actually found M, he was sitting on a playground set, holding another girl's hand. I gave him the benefit of the doubt then, because clearly my anorexia and self-loathing was making me stupid. I listened to his lies, decided to believe them so that I could feed my addiction to him a little more.

It ended badly. I decided to quit cold turkey at the end. I realized that he could never be the person I needed, the person I'd imagined. He couldn't handle it. He waited outside my work with roses, sent me mis-spelled notes, chased me around nightclubs begging for a conversation, a chance to worm his way back into my heart. But I was tapped out. I was done with trying. I needed to save myself and start over.

I'll admit that I've gone and trolled his FB page since seeing him at the concert. But we're not "friends," nor do I want to open that door, consequently I'm locked out of his account. (Coincidentally we have zero point zero zero friends in common.) I just kind of want to know that he's OK. Should I email? Nah. I couldn't fix him back then and now would be no different. He's smiling in his profile photo and that will have to suffice.

Caring is Cool

I think it's funny. We're all trying to achieve the same thing (happiness), all trying to figure out the same thing (why are we here) and yet we're constantly miserable and at odds with one another.

There has to be some humour in that right? I'd like to think so. I find comfort in laughter.

There's a lot of sad stuff on the Internet right now. You could get sucked in to heart-wrenching posts by Anissa Mayhew's wonderful husband as he documents their family's struggle as dear Anissa tries to recover from her strokes. We can't help but be drawn to tragedy and the wonderful thing about reading and/or writing blogs is that it makes you feel like a piece of that story is yours, that you're connected in some way to these random strangers. And that means you should be able to help, whether it's donating money or sending positive healing vibes, you actually can help a little bit. Isn't that awesome? Isn't that a bright light?

There's also lots of happy stuff on the Internet right now. My dear friend Kristin is in love. Correction: IN LOVE! With a gorgeous man (who likes cats and sleeveless shirts). See! You don't know her, but if you've meandered over to her blog via mine over the years, you might care. And that's cool.

I'm here to tell you that it's cool to care.

It's totally cool, no matter what your friends and colleagues think, to sit at your desk and root for Nadine's marriage. Because when you do, somehow, it works. Nadine's marriage bounds back miraculously. When you wish for Kristin's happiness, she gets it. And maybe if we pray for this woman Anissa, whom I don't know and am totally not friends with directly, to get well and go home to her family, she will.

It's worth a try no? It's certainly better than what I used to do, which was stay up all night worrying about the end of the world and how I would survive a Cormac McCarthy existence. Totally better than researching the heck out of H1N1 and wondering whether to take the fucking shot or not.

I don't totally know the answers to happiness or why we're here, but I'm kind of a hippie at heart (a hippie who likes pretty things; I guess that makes me a BoBo -- Bohemian Bourgeousie?) and I think that the paths to both lie somewhere in love. Loving yourself, loving the moment even when it's shitty, and loving life, including the people in it that you don't really know.

And it's OK to put it out to the Universe that you need help too. Not because there's some magic fucking secret, but because by announcing it, you're taking a step to start on a new road. When you send me an email from across the world telling me your story, or you comment from up the street that my words made a difference in your day, I don't know what that's called, but I know it's positive. I know it's good for you. I know because that's the road I've been on, and it's this weird invisible two-way relationship that we have that has helped to heal me.

*********************

When I started this blog, all I wanted to do was make people laugh. And I haven't been very funny lately, because I've been realizing that the root of the funny was a lot of negativity about my family, which then just... actualized? Perpetrated itself? Whatever. My point is that there are so many blogs we've read over the years, including this one, where celebrating your shortcomings was a good thing. I will still be able to laugh at myself and share that with you I hope, but I can no longer do it in a way that's detrimental to me.

Yeah, motherhood sucks sometimes. That was revolutionary 5 years ago. But we get it. It's still OK to complain on occasion and to laugh at the funny in the crap, but really, we forget how truly lucky we all are to be able to enjoy this beautiful, fucked up life.

Our kids are a gift. They teach us how unimportant 90% of adult life is. They show us the beauty in ordinary things. And sometimes they annoy the fucking hell out of us. But their root is love. OK, and maybe candy.

I leave you with this bit of joy. I've watched it oh, 10 times already. It's the animated holiday display windows at Printemps, a high end department store in Paris. I swear it's the cutest thing you'll see this week. I can't embed it for whatever reason, but here's the link.

Oh Tannen-bomb!

Originally published on Sweetspot.ca

 

I love Christmas. Correction: I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!! I suspect that if I were raised with any other religious tradition, I would embrace it just as whole-heartedly, but let me just say that my current celebrations are a far cry from my Armenian Orthodox beginnings. What I am in love with is North American, TV-style Christmas. I want my house to look like Victor Newman's house. I want to blast Bing Crosby and Mariah Carey holiday songs from the rooftops. I want to eat turkey and stuffing and gravy for days and then pass out in front of the fire with a Bailey's coffee in one hand and a Toblerone in the other.

But it seems that no one in my family, not my husband nor my kids, loves the holidays in the same way I do. Oh sure, the kids get excited to see Santa and at the thought of gifts, but my husband can be downright Scrooge-ish at times and none of them quite get the big picture.

One of my favourite traditions that we've started since having kids is having a fresh tree. I put my mom's tree up in November for its 37th time (with Armenian Christmas on January 6th, you need a fake one to last the whole way through). But this past Friday my little family made our annual trip to Horton's Tree Farm to hand select -- and hand saw -- our very own tree (no fake pine scent needed).

Of course, I envisioned it differently than it went. Lucy fell asleep on the way and woke up cranky, insisting on being carried through the farm (she's really heavy these days). And it was the first REALLY cold day of the year here in Toronto. Instead of the magical moment of "This is our tree! It is meant to be!" it was more like, "I'm fweezing!I want to use the saw! Whine whine whine!"

Regardless, we brought home a pretty nice tree. Then came the ornaments. This is fun, I thought, although I was wincing as the kids exuberantly hung all the glass balls on the bottom half of the tree. Then Nate started to play them like they were cymbals and I had to leave the room to stop myself from ruining his fun. I also made the mistake of putting the new tree skirt on him like a cape and calling him The Great Natini -- which lead to hysterics at the mere suggestion of actually placing it on the tree.

Frustrated, I sent them up for bathtime with Dad, while I belted out Boney M and compulsively lovingly hung the ornaments we've collected over the years -- EXACTLY the way I wanted them.



What about you? Have you put up your tree yet? Do you turn a blind eye to the way everyone hangs their ornaments, or do you insist on doing it your way?