Presence

It’s a Tuesday morning and I stand in solitude in the kitchen looking at the wreck that is my apartment.  Then the steam begins to emerge from the tea kettle on the stove, I yawn and stretch to the sky as the water reaches the perfect temperature.  As I begin to pour it over the coffee grounds into the French press, I smell the aroma and get a little excitement as I know this liquid from the gods is about to get my CNS to start firing faster.  I added an extra scoop today cause, as I mention, my apartment is a wreck, and this isn’t a regular Tuesday, no I do not need to rush off to work today, as it is a day for celebrating life.  We all have our own individual reasons for coming together or even staying apart on this day, and the world practically “shuts down” for us to enjoy the day however we see fit.  Not matter what your beliefs are, the majority of us have something or some reason to celebrate on this day, so whether or not you like to call it simply ‘The Holidays’ or just Christmas, for most of us it is a day of celebration. 

   While I sip my nectar from the gods, I begin to make a list of all that I need to get cleaned and cooked in order for this day come to an end with loads of laughter and satiated stomachs.  That’s the goal and I am only half way through making the list as the feeling of being overwhelmed starts to creep back in.  There’s no time for that though, so I suck it up and put a sword through that dragons head and move onto the first task on the list.  I know why these feelings are trying to creep in and in the past this might even been cause for me to cancel my plans. However, I backed myself in a corner this time as I invited my closest peoples to come to my place for Christmas dinner, so there is no canceling as they are depending on me for a great Christmas.  My performance is a must this year.  This is the first time I have ever attempted to host a holiday dinner, shit I mean four days prior to the holiday the thought of hosting hadn’t even crossed my mind.

   I have been crushing my goals lately and making a lot of sacrifices to do so.  Which has had me very hyper focused on them in order to leave no room for error, and in doing so have come way farther than even I had expected.  So these times of celebration kinda snuck up on me.  Admittedly I was half ignoring them because I usually indulges way too much and end up losing any momentum I have gain towards my health goals, so I stayed focused on those this year.  Which led me to lean on stress as my mistress, and anger was her mask this time around.   

   If anything this year has definitely taught me how to step back and not react to the anger, but to simply observe it at first and then to ask it what it ultimately wants from me to help it to go away.  While it doesn’t always give you an upfront answer, what I have found is that if you take some time and practice patience then you eventually uncover what it’s trying to show you.  This time it was telling me that I need to stop being so hard on my Self and to relax and enjoy the fruits of my labor.  I mean, hell I have been sacrificing eating a lot of the food I love for months on end now, and what does this time of year represent anyways?  Well I guess that’s a loaded question as it can mean a multitude of things depending on your past experiences and what you ultimate believe in this life you’ve been given.  

   For me, however, it has come to mean a couple things, first it is a time where we can all come together and enjoy the presences of the people we hold the closest to our hearts.  While enjoy their laughter and unique points of view to help mold our own into something hopefully better that we can take into the New Year with us.  Which comes with it the breaking of bread together and sharing in the harvest from the past years labor.  In doing this we make those relationship just a bit stronger and add little spark to our souls that will hopefully keep us warm in the coldest months of winter yet to come. 

   So I had to ask my anger this, “is it really worth it to isolate yourself, even if it’s only for one season, so that you can, quote, stay ‘on track’ or would it be more healthy for your spirit to take a break from this for a week so that you can enjoy the presences of the people you love?”  It was difficult, but I chose the latter.  What made it difficult is the fact that I have been face with this decision many times in the past and when I chose to let loose, boy did I let loose.  The problem I always had in the past was not tightening the reins back up when the celebrating was done.  Which I speculate was mainly  and I never had a course of action to pick my ass back up out of the sugar induced coma that always follows the holidays.  
due to lack of structure in the plans to “get healthy”

   This year not only do I have the plan, and am crushing it, I have also set up multiple avenues of support to keep myself focused.  So with very little time to plan it, and in the midst of planning a New Year weekend camping adventure on the coast, I reached out to the one person that means the most to me in this city that I have found my home in, and asked what she had planned for Christmas.  

   She has recently been going through her own struggle trying to lock down some form of steady employment so she could support herself, but that’s a story for a different topic.  Her response was, “nothing, I don’t get paid until Friday…” so in turn I extended an invite to my place and told her to bring the family and her boyfriend so I could finally meet him for the first time.  I haven’t even spent time with her since February when I surprised her by taking us to get a new tattoo for my birthday.  Anyways, they all accepted and that is where the feeling of being overwhelmed actually began, I had less than two days to plan, shop for and prepare a Christmas dinner for a family of 5 plus any friends that decided to stop in for a bite to eat and some whiskey.  Not to mention still having to work a full shift on Christmas Eve, cause well, corporate America that’s why. 

   I made the decision to be like the second hands on the clock that was pressing more and more close to their expected time of their arrival and keep ticking on.  Not to give into (as I have so many times in the past) the feeling of not being good enough for anything or anybody.  So I set the heavy metal Christmas tunes spinning, threw my Martha Stewart hat on and got to it.  As the night came to a close surrounded by the friends that I call family, we took turns making each other laugh and sharing our presence of being simple people enjoying a simple dinner on just another night that we decided to call Christmas. 

Originally Published 1/3/19 || Republished 2/26/19