Holidays

It's funny how things that were once exciting turn into obligations – things that we once looked forward to, we now just want to “get through”. I don’t know how this creeps up on you, but I believe the evolution springs from complications – the fact that things get more complicated and with this, events feel like a chore more than a holiday. I guess the Jehovah’s Witness spare themselves a lot of frustration by not honoring all these holidays and occasions. But they say that it's beneficial for mental well being to have things to look forward to, and for me that is what these occasions are, birthdays, major and minor holidays, and other get togethers. I look forward to them with childlike excitement, the problem is that I am not the child anymore, and I am the one who has to cook, travel, decorate, choose the side of the family that gets our presence this time, and all this logistical junk puts a damper on the child-like part. Now it’s a subdued adult-like excitement mixed with hope for child-like occasions mixed with the God given forgetfulness of that which sucked last time. Kind of like child birth – boy that is something, but somehow, as traumatic as it is, it doesn’t seem to deter you from having another one. And as traumatic as the elusive fourth trimester is, still this, doesn’t deter you from getting excited about the next one. So thank you God for the forgiving memory bank that we possess, that carries us through the next occasion, the next less than fulfilling holiday and the next beautifully painful birth.