I have a rather king sized holiday hangover.... not from drinking or drugging or staying up late as in lifetimes past.... just from being an involved parent..... The presents have been opened, relatives visited, New years eve slept through, and now I just feel wrung out. I don't want to do much of anything but lay around and drink coffee and puts around the web and feel grateful and relieved that another holiday season has been happy and healthy... and that we got all of the the errands done that needed doing for the wee one, and we shared yet another joyful couple of weeks just bonding and being together.
It's an indescribably feeling to be in the midst of a joyful child at the holiday.... and at my age, nearly 50, it's also exhausting. At first it's energizing and I feel as though I run on pure joy and adrenalin (and caffeine, of course), but after a couple of weeks of that, the body, mind and spirit are just plain wore out. At least mine are. I feel like I could sleep for a month! But the light at the end of the tunnel is that school starts up again on Weds.
Things have changed immensely since I was a kid. Half the fun of Christmas was sharing your loot with your friends and vica versa and playing with all of your stuff (or wearing it, in the case of being a girl and receiving clothes) all through out the Christmas break time. I was cat sitting for a friend and on Christmas day when I drove into her apartment complex it was like a ghost town save for one boy child riding around on his brand new scooter with no body to show or share or ride with. It was heartbreaking to see. My child is not too different. We live in the country and all of his in town friends are out of town or busy with their parents doing God knows what. We've had to be his playmates for the past few weeks and play all his games with him and help him build stuff and figure out how to work stuff and and and.... It seems the neighborhood kid network is all but gone. Even my friends in town say the same things. What the hell?!!
I realize that as we become ever more expansive in numbers, we humans are becoming more and more isolated... I know this, and yet it just hit me really hard this holiday season. I am going to put some of my energy this year into changing that. I want my damn village! And my child would love it too... He is a people person and ceaselessly engaging. It's a wonderful quality unless you are someone who requires a modicum of down time. Then all of a sudden you find yourself saying things like: "Just stop talking for minute!" OR "Please, just stop.... stop... DOING things!" Then comes the outer body knowledge that you just said what you said to a six year old who has no concept of what that means because he IS movement, he IS verbage, he IS engagement and connectivity... He just IS! And you want to kick yourself for being such a dolt. But such is life. I apologize and explain that grown ups are a bit different that children and mommy just needs a few quiet moments to recharge her batteries. All is well again. Exhausting, but well.
Happy New Year everyone. May you always find the energy to keep on doing what you do, and being who you are. And I'm including myself in this scenario as well!
xo pf
6 comments:
Amen. On all counts.
Happy New Year to YOU too!! I didn't grow up in a neighbourhood with children so there was no playing/sharing on Xmas Day w/ anyone except my cousins Sharon & Diane who were at my aunt & uncle's house for the holiday. Mine was a solitary existence in a quiet and rural part of town.
You wanna here the ultimate irony of life in the 21st century? I was down at my aunt & uncle's house, now owned by Sharon the other day and Diane's daughter came into the room w/ a Barbie doll. I commented that I liked the doll b/c she had a cool purple hair extension. Maddie, who is 11, explained to me that she really didn't want the doll, but access to the website for the virtual version of the doll. However, in order to have the web access, the actual doll had to be purchased. Oh-Em-Gee.
Steph,
Yea, no kiddin, right?
xo
Jojo
That IS a big ole Oh-Em-GEEEEE Whiz! But about the other playing with pals... many times for me it was my cousins also, but that's still SOMEbody! I adored playing with the cousins. Now we are all scattered. sigh.
xo
Yelp, I think we are becoming more isolated and that it is not particularly a good thing. I think if I had a young child today I would look into cooperative living or something like that because it can be so difficult raising a child alone. Just me and my experience.
Well Petit Fleur, I'm here from Ms Moon's blog and I've been trawling between you here and Xanadu, your other blog? and I'm trying to make sense of the disjuncture between the two, between the facts ad the fictions. not that it matters too much to me. The writing and the stories matter. In any case, I'm sure in time things might become clearer or maybe you could help clear them up for me.
I'm pleased to meet you Fleur, all the way from Australia.
Rubye,
We have considered moving to a "community". We are so far kind of lazy and stuck in the panhande.
xo m
Elisabeth,
Welcome! Xanadu is a blog that I started for a friend of mine who lives on death row. Most of the writing on that blog is his. I may have done one or two posts there, I forget. Anyway, we were trying to keep it going regularly, but I was unable to keep it regular. He has not sent me a post in a while, so I'm not sure what we're doing. He has to write to me and then I put it up because they do not have computers in prison.
This blog is just about me, my life and things I think about.
I hope that clears things up. :-) And hope that you come back to visit.
Peace, pf
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