I found my old LiveJournal from 2005/2006. It is suitably ridiculous.
Monthly Archives: December 2015
Yuletide Blues
Christmas-time is a difficult time of year for everyone, it seems. All of the togetherness, peace, and good-will toward men comes with a grand helping of isolation, sadness, and guilt. Without meaning to, the holiday season does its damnedest to remind us all of what we’ve lost.
Christmas was a big deal to me when I was growing up. My mom was positively possessed of the holiday spirit. Every inch of our five-bedroom house was decorated; the banisters festooned with garlands, mechanical singing-and-dancing merry-go-rounds on the landing, and an eight-foot-tall tree front and center in the living room. Our hand-made stockings were hung with care o’er the fireplace with limited-edition stocking holders care of the Disney Store. Special towels and holiday-scented soaps were strategically placed in the bathrooms. Stuffed polar bears, reindeer, and Mickey Mouse in a Santa hat were my once-a-year friends. These artifacts became integral to my experience of the holiday season. Without them, the holiday felt pale, lackluster, deficient.
The year I turned eleven was the last of the great Christmases of my childhood. You just can’t stuff a two bedroom apartment with yuletide glee the same way as a two-story home. Being a child of divorce made it happen that Christmas time was more “hum-bug” than “ho-ho-ho”. As I grew, I came to realize that this meant there was no home-base to return to. No childhood bedroom filled to the rafters with relics of my past. No safe-haven to return to after a bad break-up or a fight with the roommate. There was no longer a place to safely store the artifacts my my childhood until such a time came for me to pass those things on to children of my own.
Things disappeared gradually, so much so that I didn’t realize they were missing until it was too late. I assumed the ubiquitous storage units my parents each rented when they moved separately into sad-divorcee apartment blocks would be kept in perpetuity. I assumed that both my mother and father knew, instinctively, that I was counting on keeping my great-grandmother’s china, our family albums, and other assorted pieces from around our home. I assumed that my mother’s horde of Christmas decorations was just as sacred to the adults around me as it was to me personally. In retrospect, perhaps it was all wishful thinking: I wanted these things to be true.
Things were jettisoned over time, in part out of necessity. When my mother and stepfather moved from California to Hawaii in 2003, they could only afford to ship so many things with them, and my grandmother only had room in her garage for so much. Again, I assumed that the things that were being saved and stored were the things that mattered so much to me. In the end, I won’t ever know for sure if that was true.
I came to live with Mom and Al in November of 2004. By Spring of 2008, they were both gone, consumed by separate but voracious illnesses. When Al went, we kept everything. A closet full of aloha shirts, a silver menorah, and a baby grand piano neither of us could play. When Mom got sick two years later, the decision was made that she would move back to the Mainland for treatment and stay with her mother. The piano went with her, but a great deal of Al’s other belongings were passed on to his daughters or donated. We boxed up our whole apartment, including most of my journals, photo albums, and knick-knacks — I was going to live in a much smaller place with a roommate and I wouldn’t have space for it all. I assumed (what was that thing your mother always said about assuming…) that everything would be stored at Grandma’s house, next to great-grandma’s china and Mom’s Christmas Horde. After Mom was gone, it gave me comfort to know that once I was a real grown-up, I could go retrieve those vestiges of our shared past.
We lost a great many things in that fire that consumed my mother’s life. She was more than just the person that gave birth to us. She was our home and the lynch-pin that held our family together. Our greatest cheer-leader and supreme boo-boo kisser. When she went, I lost my friend. My siblings and I, we lost our memory-keeper. And in the intervening years between losing my mother and having a family of my own, I lost my history.
It’s all gone, you see. Every journal I kept from age 13 until 20. Every note and token of love from my first love, which I saved in a (literal) heart-shaped box. Crappy candids of my friends and me in school. Baby-blankets and a sweater knit for me by my Grandy. All of the tangible pieces of the first twenty years of my life. Great-grandma’s china. And all of my mother’s holiday collection.
I frequently force myself to remember that these are just things. Things are not love and they can’t replace the people that you’ve lost. I try to remind myself that I don’t need to cling to these fragments of my past or of my family, because I’m making a new family and building new memories. But it’s hard. It’s hard to decorate a Christmas tree with my daughter and think of a legacy of joy that I won’t be able to pass on to her. It hurts to sit around a table of my in-laws and listen to them tell stories about my husband as he was growing up, knowing that I can’t reciprocate by sitting him down with my mother and having her relive my history for him. It’s sad that so much of what we all seem to take for granted as being permanent and unchangeable, is in fact completely fragile.
I have had to let go of a great deal, but I carry on with traditions and hold my new family close. I’m M’s mommy now. I’m her history-keeper, and I take this appointment seriously. Her stories are written down in baby books and documented in photos. We are building a life and a foundation for her to jump off from and I will make sure that it persists in case she ever wishes to return. Every year, we buy a new ornament and add to our Christmas collection, rich with fondness for what we have and bittersweet joy for what we lost.
The War on Christmas (is not)
Okay, so here’s the thing: it seems to me that political correctness is going the way of the dodo. It’s just not cool to be politically correct these days — it’s not edgy or original, and it just doesn’t get people fired up like it used to. The thing people really get excited about nowadays is arguing against being politically correct, because trying to avoid offending other people is so gosh-darn offensive! (As if inclusion and avoidance of microaggressions against minorities are personal attacks on one’s ability to be a member of the majority.) It’s like they’re arguing against “White Guilt”, but with everything: We, as white people, are not at all responsible for systemic racism — it was before my time. We, as able-bodied individuals, shouldn’t feel restricted in our story-telling, and should be free to make jokes at the expense of the disabled. We, as Christians, shouldn’t be put-upon to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” just because there are other people on this Earth who have different religious beliefs, etc. etc.
Uhg. Get real for a quick sec and unpack your privilege just a teeny-tiny bit: Only 31% of the world’s population is Christian. THIRTY-ONE PERCENT. That means, Mr. High-and-Mighty, that you are sharing this Earth with a whopping 69% of people who don’t follow the teachings of Christ the way that you do — you really think it’s okay to exclude 69% of people from your tidings of holiday joy and peace on Earth? (Incidentally, if you do think that’s ok, I wonder what the Big J would have to say about that, you bigot.)
It is totally up to you if you want to say “Happy Holidays” or not. If someone were to tell me “Merry Christmas”, I wouldn’t be offended. Actually, I don’t know a single person who has ever expressed any offense at receiving a “Merry Christmas” from another person, regardless of their religious beliefs and practices, or lack thereof. However, I do hear an awful lot from people like Donald Trump claiming that each and every “Happy Holidays” (or other equally secular greeting) is tantamount to a war on Christmas. He even went so far as to claim that 7 out of 10 people prefer “Merry Christmas” as a greeting, which is funny since, like I said, only 31% of people are Christian. Perhaps he meant 7 out of 10 Americans? That would be slightly more accurate though that number is dropping all the time.
Despite the fact that they are the cultural, if not the actual, majority in our modern society, Christians are the only ones bitching and moaning about the “loss of our sacred holiday”, despite the obvious problems with conflating “sacred” and “commercialized nightmare”. It’s as if they believe that December belongs only to Christmas, and all other yuletide celebrations are intruding. Don’t believe me? Think about your local mega-mart — none of your neighborhood Jews complain that this represents the entirety of their available holiday shopping:
But you best believe that if your local Target decided to invest as much real estate in their Hanukkah display as their Christmas display, shit would hit the fan.
So what’s all the fuss about? No one is asking you to be politically correct, and no one is offended by your “Merry Christmas”. By and large, the only people who are complaining are those members of the majority who are so intensely threatened by the mere existence of minority groups, that they don’t want those groups represented or recognized at all.
I’ll let that sink in for a second.
Majority groups, like Christians, like Caucasians, aren’t actually in danger of loosing their high level of privilege, but still they are so terrified by the slightest suggestion of equal representation, that any attempt at inclusion has them flying off the handle. As if to elevate minorities would cost the majority anything more that absolute control over the world that they have monopolized since time immemorial.
Well, I guess if I had all of the power and all of the privilege, I might have some minor control issues, too.
It’s a shame that so many Christians fall into this mental trap. (Parenthetically it should be noted that of course I am not directing these criticisms toward all Christians. It is just easier to write in absolutes, so bear with me.) Maybe it’s built in to their belief system, the whole “martyr” thing, but truthfully, y’all have nothing to worry about. So long as Christianity is the opiate of the masses… uh, I mean, the favored religion of English-speaking Caucasians, you guys are in-like-Flynn. Nigh irreproachable. (Well, sort of.) And no amount of elevation of minority group status can touch you. Go find something else to invest all of that prodigious energy into that will actually do someone some good, why doncha?
The Gypsy and the Pagan
I’m so excited to be expanding my services under the Sightful Sarah with my good friend and teacher, Anaiyah.
Working From Doubt
I have arrived! Now is a time in my life that I fought hard for, for many years. I should be beaming with pride for my achievement and relaxing with the fruit of my efforts.
So why am I plagued by incessant debilitating self-loathing?
Well, I guess you can’t have everything.
When I graduated high school, I knew what I wanted to be: I wanted to become a freelance ASL interpreter. I wanted an education. I wanted a home. I wanted a family. In the ensuing ten years, I have chipped away at that list, attending college, earning three degrees, marrying my college sweetheart, establishing a home for us, and becoming a mother. Three years ago, I earned my interpreting credential and starting working freelance on the side, while maintaining my nine-to-five job for its financial security. This year, after a great deal of consideration and planning, I decided I’m ready to take that final leap: I resigned from my nine-to-five and announced that I would be freelancing starting in 2016.
I’m excited, and terrified, and elated. I feel like Diane Lane’s character in Under the Tuscan Sun: after years of struggle, I finally got everything that I asked for. But in my head and in my heart, I’m still so deeply unhappy with myself. Ever since I made my decision, I’ve been completely depressed — why am I tortured this way?
In part, I am actually deeply disappointed with myself. I’ve managed to achieve a great deal, but I’ve feel that I have failed myself in other ways, primarily in terms of managing my self-destructive behaviors. Things that I once considered to be bad habits or the result of a poor lifestyle have now insinuated themselves into my psychological state: I’m not just an emotional eater, I’ve developed a full-blown eating disorder. I don’t just bite my fingernails when I’m anxious, I’m addicted to self-harm through dermatillomania. I don’t just have low self-esteem, I emotionally eviscerate myself with pathological regularity. I am literally incapable of experiencing my own joy. I’ve evolved in many positive ways, but the comorbidity of my progress to my illness can’t be overlooked. What if I sacrificed too much of myself in order to achieve my dreams?
Being A Girl: A Brief Personal History of Violence
Because women truly can do anything that men do — it’s just that sometimes we are killed for it.
1.
I am six. My babysitter’s son, who is five but a whole head taller than me, likes to show me his penis. He does it when his mother isn’t looking. One time when I tell him not to, he holds me down and puts penis on my arm. I bite his shoulder, hard. He starts crying, pulls up his pants and runs upstairs to tell his mother that I bit him. I’m too embarrassed to tell anyone about the penis part, so they all just think I bit him for no reason.
I get in trouble first at the babysitter’s house, then later at home.
The next time the babysitter’s son tries to show me his penis, I don’t fight back because I don’t want to get in trouble.
One day I tell the babysitter what her son does, she tells me that he’s just a little boy, he doesn’t know…
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The Real Sarah C. 