Coffee Chat: Christmas Present

Come in dears...There's Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies in the cookie jar and coffee or tea.  Yesterday I might have offered you something cold to drink but today something hot is definitely in order.

I've normally done a look back at the year behind by this point of the year, at least privately, but this year I find I'm not so keen on doing that.  It was a hard year in many ways and it wasn't until the past couple of months that  worries abated.  Admittedly in the midst of it all, there looked to be no end to it.   Now I look back and am astonished at the blessings that came my way at the end of the year.  It's enough to be grateful for those things without looking at the difficult passages.



I am over the time past, I am truly, but I feel no great push to plan for next year, either.  It's not because the passage of next year seems too unknown.  Retirement is just one more adjustment to make in a lifetime of adjusting to various work schedules and life changes.  No, the future doesn't frighten me nor worry me though it's speeding towards us rather rapidly.  I think John works one day this month (maybe two?) and then in January he starts using up more time that he won't be paid for if it's left on the table, and in February it's over and done.  And you might think of all year's to plan the one ahead 2020 is one to look at and plan for.

But here I sit, thinking I ought to review the year, I ought to plan next year and all I can do is look at the blank sheet of paper before me and say, "Noooo…"

I've asked myself questions: Am I shell shocked from the last two years of trauma and drama?  Am I over tired? This is a possibility, I admit...but I'm not by any means  exhausted.   Am I just lacking in ambition altogether or have I grown complacent?  Am I waiting for 'the next thing', the shoe that hasn't dropped?  Is it malaise?  And to each one I have to sincerely answer, "No, it's not that..."   It isn't that I can't think of things to do, things which must be done as well as things I'd like to do.  I need only look about my home, or at my interests, to come up with a quick list of things I might do.

I think  I've finally gotten accustomed to living in the NOW.  And for a planner and dreamer, a mover and shaker, this is an odd place to be.  However, I can see that the time that has gone behind me really pushed me to reach this place, to stop trying to shape time and circumstances to familiar dimensions and to learn to simply BE, to do the next thing when it presented itself but to stop being busy just to appear busy.  For someone who has been ambitious,  fidgety, restless, I've settled into my chair and simply sat here and done nothing.  No computer, no games, no reading.  No hopping up to do one of a dozen tasks that I might attend to.  It's not to say I'm being lazy either.  I am working, doing those little extras I see have been unattended in the past, but I'm also NOT doing things.  Frankly, it's weird.  It's uncharacteristic.  And it's lovely.  Peaceful.   I suppose this is my Christmas gift to me this year.

We attended the annual EMS Christmas party last night.  It was a simple easy gathering and I think if anything ever could have pointed up that it's time to move on, it was last night.  I knew only our hosts and one other person of the crew members who came to dinner.  I recall our first Christmas party with the group...I think John must've worked there two or three years before we went to the first one but even so, I felt as though we were on the outside looking in.   And last night was a bit like having gotten through the glass and found the whole of the thing was on the other side now.  It was lovely, really it was, but it was obvious that we'd gone through if you know what I mean.  These were not friends nor even acquaintances of years standing.  They were strangers.  They belonged and we did not, not really.   And it was okay.  There was no looking at them all wondering if we'd ever fit in.  There was no desire to fit.  This too is a new place, a place of accepting that things change, I've changed, we've changed.  It was clear that we'd reached the end and I felt no lump in my throat nor any anxious desire to figure out what the next step will be.  It shall present itself when it's time.

I did chuckle when our host spoke of a plan he had for his future.  He would like to save a year or so worth of expenses before his term is up.  And my chuckle wasn't because I think it impossible, or that he's foolish.  No indeed, it was exactly that I'd planned to do just that last December 2018, looking ahead into what we were just thinking might be our final year with EMS.  And then the proverbial stuff hit the fan and the roller coast ride began.  Year two of reducing expenses and saving all we could looked like year one had.  We were too busy helping another to even consider our own desires.  As I told John last night on the way home, having mentioned what our host had said were his plans, "If nothing else, we do know we can live on less...We've lived on less all year long!"

I find more and more, I'm less regretful about the things lost in years like this.  I'm not sorry we helped and  truly I found it to be a great privilege.  My children don't ASK for help.  They never have done and if they did ask it was little things, doable things, one time only sorts of things.

But it was as good for us as it was for them to be able to help these past two years.  It was good because we found we might get a bit snug in our finances but we managed to carry on.  There was room to reduce, and economies that might be made.  I learned to do things like make Bagels and English Muffins and to find new ways to save (Wikibuy comes to mind).  I learned that the things I've done all along are truly helps and would see us through.  I learned to thrift shop for clothes.  I learned to wait and let God provide and I learned to accept the circumstances and not curse the blessings in them.

I had more time to spend with my youngest grandchildren and saw more of my youngest children than I might have otherwise.  I've had the pleasure of watching my plenty become theirs as I gifted from my pantry to start their own pantries and then saw that ours was still plentiful enough to carry us through.  And in turn I've learned that my children will find a way to return the blessing.  A gift of venison here and a gallon of milk or jar of peanut butter there.  Extra from their table passed to ours or a gift of clothing that was my size, or even a book of puzzles and a handful of lotion samples were given.  Little things perhaps but helpful and thoughtful and given from the abundance of what they had was a blessing to us, often coming at a moment of need.

So you see, I might have sat here and rued the things that occurred and the hardships that came but instead I've been so privileged to see the blessings.  I've chosen to remember the lovelier of what occurred these past two years.  I think I've blossomed, just as the African violet has done, over and over again, once I chopped it off in what I was sure was  too drastic a fashion.  And maybe what has gone behind was drastic but it was for my good.  It was to my benefit.

I've spent the past three days puttering gently about the house but accomplishing things too.  Today I dusted and polished furniture in three rooms.  I've taken note of things I want to change.  I moved pictures about and rehung them in new rooms so they look fresh and new.  I tried to be mindful of using food and not letting it go to waste so we've eaten things that were at prime ripeness or even a little beyond (but just barely).   For some reason, being aware of blessing makes me want to be mindful of being a good steward of our things, perishable and non-perishable alike.  So taking care of furnishings and foodstuffs has been high priority.

I've thought back over other Christmases, mostly from my childhood and I find there's a memory here or there that is sweet to me in one way or another.  There was, for instance, the first Christmas I remember in which my brother got some sort of rocking Duck thing and I got a blue pedal car and he cried.  I think he must've wanted the car to be honest with you but I was three and he was two.  Not the first Christmas we spent with him unhappy.  He and Mama both...oh my!

Another year we spent at Granny's.  I had a lovely doll called Sweetie Pie dressed in a white eyelet dress with a pink bow and she came upon a white satin and pink velvet pillow with one of those 'magic' milk bottles that drained when feeding baby and then refilled when baby was done.   I'd have been happy with just that, but that year we also got bicycles.  Grandaddy taught me how to stop mine.  He pointed me at the barbed wire fence and said "You'll hit that fence or you'll stop first!" and so I steered my bike into the side of the oak tree that stood beside the fence and crashed... but I sure learned to stop by the next try!

It's Granny's house that stands out for me as the best of Christmas past.  There was always an abundance of good food, and familiar decorations and a fresh tree.   The house smelled like Christmas.  And there was always the added bonus of getting to see our cousins.  I know just how Josh feels when his cousins come here.  He loves seeing them and playing with them and the Kingsland three went running to greet him and Isaac on Sunday and met him halfway.  I am so happy that my house can be the source of that cousinly love.  That sense of belonging to a family was so impactful in my own life that I'm happy it's been given to me the opportunity to do the same for these God have put near me.

Today I passed my very first home of my own which sits near a major state highway.  As I drew near the place today I thought about that first married Christmas.  We bought a small artificial tree but there was no money at all for decorations.  So I bought three or four sheets of felt and made my own.  They were clumsy and looked like a child had made them but with popcorn and pinecones gathered from our yard, the tree got decorated and I daresay I thought it as lovely as any I'd ever had if only because it was my first.   There have been so many trees since then, and Christmases both flush and slim.

So I shall end here.  Another too short visit, another late afternoon closure...But how I do enjoy our visits!