The Bittersweet Flavor of the Holiday Season

Thanksgiving Eve. Growing up, this was one of my favorite times of the year. Holiday music (which I LOVE) is playing everywhere you go. Christmas Break was on the horizon (and so was my birthday!), and New York City during the holidays is always beautifully magical. And it all kicked off on Thanksgiving Eve. School was always easy--the last day before a four day weekend, plus the day before Thanksgiving means everyone was in a great mood. But, the best was coming home. Walking in the door, and seeing my grandmother in the kitchen, boiling potatoes, seasoning the turkey and the ham, preparing the mac and cheese and stuffing..it was heavenly. And, not just for the obviously gluttonous reason (I WAS the official taste tester, after all), but because I felt safe at home with my family. There was this warmth I felt from the security of being home Wednesday night with my immediate family all safe around me. Then, at age 14, we lost my grandfather right before the holidays that October. Looking back on it, the women in my life were so strong. As painful as it was to go on with the season that year, they never showed it. They stayed as put together as they could be for me and my brand new 6 month old baby cousin. It may not have been the best Holiday season, but I did feel warm and safe.

18 years later, and here I am now on another Thanksgiving Eve. In the past almost two decades, things have changed tremendously. I'm no longer on Granny's couch or at her kitchen table watching her prepare meals for Thursday's feast, I am now in my own apartment. Four years ago, I spent my very first holiday season without my mom, which has been the biggest impact on me by far. Most people reading this know me and about my struggles with my grief over the loss of my mom (for the uninformed, chronicled somewhat in this blog) and how I've been able to face this next phase of my life without my original BFF. Talking to some friends recently who have experienced a similar loss of a parent, as well as other timely movies and television shows brought up a swell of feelings for me this week. And it is this time of year that brings a bittersweet feeling that hangs over me the entire season.

Being a holiday season baby, this time of year has always been exciting. The countdown to Christmas has also paralleled the countdown to my birthday, and celebrating Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's with friends, family and food! But, in 2009, this time of year became to difficult to bear. That first year, I was so numb. I remember finding recipes for new foods to cook to keep my mind occupied and not focused on the big loss that weighed heavy on my heart. On one hand, it kept me busy, and I learned how to make some delicious new meals (and kept my ex very full), but on the other hand, when I wasn't cooking, the pain of my loss was debilitating. Sure, I spent Thanksgiving with the rest of my family, but that missing void in the room was painful, and I realized then that nothing could ever take that pain away. As time has gone by, I've begun to live in this current phase as best I can: by never forgetting or moving on, but carrying the pain with me as I find someway to continue on.

So on this Thanksgiving Eve, I take in both the good and the bad of the upcoming season: missing my mother tremendously, but being grateful for the 26 years that I did have her. Singing the cheesy happy birthday song to myself every year that she sang to me. Watching all those Christmas cartoons I used to watch with her and remembering how I laughed at her while she cried at them. Remembering all the years we spent putting up the tree in the living room and listening to her favorite CD, "Soul Christmas" while she danced around to the music. And reminiscing on all the good memories that I have. But I will also endure the harder moments, too. When I feel down about missing her, I will accept that and take it in. When the Christmas music and TV shows bring me to tears, I will embrace it. It is officially now all a part of my process, and things I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Because I have to be able to accept the Bittersweet Flavor of the Holiday Season.

The Battle Within...

I've been writing. A lot lately. In fact, in the past few months, I have drafted a few pieces, and I've been dying to publish something. This post right here was definitely one of my drafts. This is something I have been thinking about for a while, and has been speaking to me a lot, especially recently.

How do we know we are good people? What makes us "good" over other individuals that are labeled "bad"? How are the qualities that some people possess held in a higher regard than others? Can we really tell others or admit to ourselves when we are not being good people? These questions have been circling my brain for the past few months. You see, I always thought I was a good person inherently. I mean, sure, I'm a brat, I'm stubborn, I have a  bit of a mean streak, and as Beyoncé once put it, "I'm a train wreck in the morning and a bitch in the afternoon", but I've never imagined myself to have malicious intent. And, aren't we all made with our own flaws and cracks anyway? That's a part of what makes us perfectly imperfect I have always believed. But, lately, I've been questioning this notion. Perhaps some of the qualities we tell ourselves are good and self-sustaining are much more selfish and hurtful than we want to admit.

I've always been a firm believer in self-care. In fact, I've written about this before: If you can't take care of yourself, you'll be no good to anyone else in your life. But, where do we draw the line between self-care and selfishness? How much taking care of ourselves is too much, and when do we learn to let others in? What does too much even look like? I feel like this is a battle I have fought for many years now. Call it the curse of the only child I suppose, but I've spent a lot of time in my life learning to be content with doing things on my own. I've always deep down felt that was the way it was supposed to be for me. At times I felt like I was winning this battle, and at other times, my loneliness informed me that I was squarely on the losing side. Now that I'm older, and my life has shifted into thinking about having children and a family, I have learned that I haven't really shifted my mindset very much. Now I'm forced to ask myself, does that make me a bad person? Will I ever be able to be a good parent and a good wife if so much of what I believe about living this life is tied into taking care of myself first? Is there something actually wrong with wanting what we want for ourselves and making sure our happiness paramount? And, if so, how do I reconcile that?

It's interesting, because being in the profession I'm in, a lot of my job is tied into focusing on the needs of others. And, I willingly have done so for the better part of 8 years. No matter how tiring it may be at times, it is still what I love to do. In fact, as I have learned about myself, it's sometimes the only glue that holds me together when other things around me and in my life are falling apart. At times it seems like my only saving grace, my one redeeming quality: I may be a mess, but I'm gonna push mine to the side, roll up my sleeves, and get down and dirty and help YOU clean up yours.

I'm not sure if I'll ever get the answers,  if the questions don't have answers at all, or if I refuse to be honest enough with myself to admit that I do have the answers and I just don't want to act on it. In thinking about my own happiness, I'm not even sure I am able to come to terms with that looks like for me. We all have these grand ideas of what we would need in order for us to feel some level of content, but how sure are we truly that these things will affect our lives in anyway at all? And, to what lengths do we go to in an attempt to attain these things? Could someone on the outside looking in call our actions nefarious? Selfish or Self-centered? Or do our actions look the way we think they do: Justified.

At some point, these conflicting paths will have to cross for me, just like for everyone else. In my case however, I'm just concerned about the aftermath of the battle. Will I feel like I've conquered my worries about being a good person? Or will I step out of the rubble feeling more broken than before the fight began?

Ramblings From my Heart....

Normally when I blog, I talk about things in a more vague, broad nature---life, love, relationships, etc. But, something spoke to my heart in a way that can't be blanketed, that must be expressed exactly in the way I feel about it.
I am really broken up about leaving my job. It really hurts me to my core to have to come to terms with leaving these children and this environment that I have grown to love. I was on an interview today, and when I was asked about myself and the work that I do, the interviewer noted how brightly I responded about the work being done with my kids and how much I enjoy working where I do and doing what I do. That's when it really hit me: I totally do not feel ready to go. When asked by others why I'm looking, I can come up with tons of PC reasons: I need a change; ready to move on; even location. Fact is none of that is true. I would stay another 3 years. For the salary they hired me on, too. But, it's not up to me. I have to leave because the administration doesn't like me. It's seems childish yet adult at the exact same time: you have to be able to play The Game sometimes. Instead of being valued as a qualified adult and asked to speak my mind, I am supposed to grin and bear it and fall in line with the more "liked" people. It absolutely feels like not only working in high school but being high school, where you get the highest praise and the most reward for following the popular crowd. You get the "in" but instead of being at parties and sitting at the cool lunch table, you get to have your opinion be valued and play a bigger role in the work being done for the students and the school.  While others are coddled and swathed in the cover of immunity, I am on the outside looking in at the chosen ones as they are allowed to blaze their own paths. It's painful to watch, but not for the humanistic primal reasons one might think (although they are there, too), but because it's so tough to stifle your passion for something you have wanted to do for so long. It's hard to have to smile through the pain of not being treated equal to others based on a difference in personality. It's hard to see others rewarded while you are continuously pushed further and further into a corner. How ironic is it that I have to sit in all these "team" meetings (Social Work, Intervention, Be the Change, High School, etc.) and yet I feel like the unwanted member of the squad. You tell me one athlete who feels supported and united with the team when their coach and GM are always doubting their performance and constantly threatening to cut them. I couldn't think of anyone who would feel welcomed in an environment like that. Real teams support each other, and work together for the greater good. It's even tougher when your passion for this work is so palpable, and everything you are attempting to do is not only to be successful as a professional, but be successful for the students.

This whole experience makes not only my work suffer, but my own personal worth takes a hit as well. How could I possibly be good at what I do if no one at my job thinks so? If the person hired to supervise me and the person who hired me sees these things, surely I must not be seeing what they do. I must suck! Having to confront that while still looking my students in the eye and teaching them life skills was enough to drive me to start sending out my resume. But, going through the experience of leaving my kids forces me to teach them one of the biggest life lessons of all: change is constant, and it doesn't have to be scary, easy, or bad. It can be a new beginning. Being forced to step out into a new path can actually be just what my spirit needed: a wake up call, a reminder to face another challenge to prove how strong I really am.

So, even though it brings me to tears to think about missing my babies' continued college acceptance letters, helping with their fundraising activities, planning and attending their senior trip and prom and seeing them all on that stage at graduation, I know the best lesson I can teach them is to not be bitter, not hold grudges, and don't be angry, but to be grateful for everything that brought us to that moment, and be proud of the work that was already done. Because when the tears dry and the pain of loss fades, the good memories live on. To my class of 2014, and to my class of 2012, my sour patch babies, I love you.

Hearts Are Like Doors in That Way....

Some people think vulnerability is easy to detect. If someone is crying, frustrated or showing any deep level of emotion, it is taken to mean that they are open enough to express the affairs of their heart. But, what if showing vulnerability doesn't manifest itself in those ways? What if it's simply in an act of kindness, in doing one thing differently today than your would have yesterday, when your heart was a little more closed off, a little more colder than it is today?


Often times, we look for big signs to determine that things are changing in the world around us: leaves changing, temps dropping and sunlight depleting are the things we need to notice Fall is in the air. We never notice the subtle signs of summer leaving us until it's all but gone. But, if we perhaps ever really stopped to notice all around us, it might be apparent in mid-August that the seasonal change is truly upon us. I suppose it is the same way in relationships. Huge declarations, gifts and proclamations are what we look at to determine the milestones in our lives. But, what about those little moments, you know, the ones we take for granted? Aren't those the signs that big changes are upon us, the people around us, or perhaps even ourselves? Aren't their small ways to show that our own hearts are warming, even if it's just a little bit?

Sometimes, a door can't go from completely open to completely closed. It has to be unlocked, the knob has to be turned, and sometimes it has to crack open, ever....so...gently...until you notice that it is fully open again, ready to be walked through.  Hmm.....I guess....