So, we've just gotten through the time of year during which family gathers and celebrates the warmth of the season. And most of the time, hopefully, that season is truly warm, and not a hot mess.
I think it can easily be said that every family has its dysfunction. Most of the time, we are all doing our level best just to "keep the peace" and go along. It's kind of what's expected from mature adults. Sometimes everyone walks away from the holidays unscathed, sometimes not so much.
Life in general is an awful lot like that, and usually, the dysfunctions and challenges we face with family and friends leave us with one simple choice: do we just go along, or do we choose to be who we are at the risk of upsetting the apple cart?
I grew up, as most of us did, in a household where the expectation was to keep your head down and not make waves. While I could arguably say that my household carried these ideals to an extreme, they aren't uncommon expectations. We're all expected to behave ourselves and not make trouble, and most of the time, I'm pretty sure that's a noble pursuit, or else we would all be in the midst of a lot of turmoil most of the time.
But sometimes, just sometimes, I think that some of us have spent so much time bending over backwards to avoid conflict with everyone else, that we tend to lose ourselves, and I'm not so sure that's fair or even as beneficial to the greater good as we are raised to believe.
I face this issue every holiday season, and I usually start thinking about it by the end of September. Since commercially we seem to nearly skip over Thanksgiving and go straight to Christmas, it's pretty hard to avoid thinking about the inevitable sooner and sooner every year.
My mom and I haven't spoken in almost four years, and I have a handful of relatives whom I work very hard to simply avoid for reasons that are deeply important to me. My break with my mother stems from the realization that, unfortunately, she just has a very toxic effect on me and has a habit of being very self-centered and vicious. It's difficult. As for my aunt and her children, I find it very difficult to be around them, because it usually means that I am witnessing them suck my grandmother completely dry.
It makes November and December especially difficult. Riding the "high horse" isn't something I do to intentionally make things hard or out of fun. I've had to find myself "in the saddle" because, sadly, I have tended to want to believe that I can "fix" things, and I am always proven even more sadly to be wrong. It took a great deal of my adult life to understand that you can't fix people, they have to want to fix themselves, and most of the time, they don't see anything wrong with how they behave, so why would they change a thing?
And since I can't stop trying to right the wrongs, I have often found that I allow myself to be harmed in the wake of those wrongs. I finally decided that I valued myself more than I valued the peace that came from just going along. It's actually quite hard to put yourself first. I feel guilty about it every year, because it means that I don't spend the holidays with anyone in my family, however limited they may be. I'm not loud or obstinate about it. I'm quiet and evasive. I haven't found a better way. This year has been no different.
As the birth of our daughter quickly approaches, I fear that all of this will become even more challenging. I have no doubt that our lack of contact hasn't managed to prevent my mother from knowing that my husband and I have relocated, and that we have a baby on the way. It would be nearly impossible for me to conceal these things forever. The question already has been raised whether I really intend not to talk to her about Willow. The truth is, she has been so toxic and hurtful, that I don't intend to talk to her about anything, least of all the precious little human that I would gleefully do anything to protect.
But it isn't really fair. All of this strife and avoidance means that I won't be able to as freely share our daughter with my grandmother, who was such an important part of my own childhood. I won't feel secure just dropping her off to spend a weekend playing in the kitchen or getting into mischief with the woman who would happily stop to pick up every box turtle between my home in the city and her house in the country. It makes me sad. And understandably, she doesn't understand the reasons why I stay away, and why I became so protective of myself. Until you've been very, very harmed by someone you trusted and loved, it's an impossible thing to relate to.
This year has been a very different one for me. I started off deeply and emotionally "in the red." Months of being battered and bruised by loss and turmoil led into more months of being battered and bruised by loss and turmoil. I've talked about it, but it bears repeating. I became the kind of person that not too many people wanted to be around. I lacked the wherewithal to find my own sense of grace many times. And without always realizing it, I was hurtful. It hasn't changed anything about the relationships I harmed, but the only pride I take away from this time period is that I take responsibility for who I was and I accept, though with sadness, the bad feelings I cannot change.
I like to think that's the difference between those of us who are toxic for a time, and those of us who can never see themselves through anyone else's eyes and are toxic at their core. I never expected anyone to shift or be different on my account during my toxic time, I was just too consumed in my own storm to find a way out.
Since realizing that there are people who have the ability to cause me immense damage, it has always been my choice whether to put myself in their paths or not. I've never been the person to be avoided, and I've never been in a position to observe when someone else is choosing how to get out of the line of fire. I understood why I had to "leap" out of harm's way, but until I recently saw someone else I love very much make a similar "leap," I didn't really understand what that sometimes means.
On the one hand, it means you just aren't willing to accept being abused by someone else, even if making that decision isn't the most comfortable choice for everyone else around. But I think there's a more important meaning--I think it also means that you have reached the point where being true to who you really are is more valuable to you than promoting a false peace. I realize it's not a fair price for everyone else in the mix to pay, but as someone who has been faced with that price for so many years, the person choosing is the only one who can say whether it's worth it or not.
I can't make the choice for my grandma that my aunt and her sons not continue to take advantage of her. I have to respect that she aids and abets their poor life skills and inability to support themselves, but I can choose whether I want to witness it or not, or have my child be a witness to it. I can't make my mom understand that being around her is exactly what I would want to do if she wasn't fixated on making herself the center of attention through hurtful and terrible actions that she can't ever take back, but I can choose not to allow myself and the family I am making to be the victims of what she has to offer.
They aren't easy choices. Life frequently doesn't give us easy choices.
I am fortunate. Though still a very tumultuous time, my own storms started to abate halfway through this year, and it is my great hope that all of the happy things that have presented themselves as the clouds finally cleared hold a lot of promise for the next year. Whatever the case may be, there is one thing I do know: out of all of the hard time, the peace that's returned to my life isn't the false kind. It isn't the kind that comes from people around me compromising themselves to accommodate me and my lashing out. It's the kind of peace that comes from having a handful of people who loved and understood that I wasn't going to be in that horrible place forever, and that I needed them all the more. It's the kind of peace that comes from owning who you are at every moment, no matter how terrible you may sometimes become when you find yourself in dire straits. It's the kind that comes from understanding that some people needed to protect themselves from me, and respecting that, even though it's hard.
So, while I believe that peace is a worthwhile pursuit, I suppose I can only accept the real thing. And sometimes the realest peace is the peace that comes from choosing what's right for oneself, over what appears to be right to everyone else.
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