A Winter Un-Bucket List

I’m someone my husband likes to call a ‘Christmas junkie’. I admit it – I totally get swept up in the lights, the music, the decorating, the baking, the gift giving, and all of that stuff that doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things. And I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with that because that stuff is fun, and who doesn’t want to have a little fun during the holidays?

However, the key to enjoying those aspects of the holiday season is to keep it all stress-free. Minimalize. Don’t make the mistake of seeing the unimportant as important. The minute you stop enjoying those things and start stressing over them is the moment you lose all perspective and start failing at life.

If you think about it, the whole point of the holiday season is to celebrate and reflect upon something so simple and amazing – the birth of a V.I.B. (a Very Important Baby) – so shouldn’t it be a season of simplicity and peace?

I started to put together a bucket list of all the things I want to do this winter, and then I realized…I kinda want to do everything. The Christmas junkie in me needs to calm down a little.

So instead I came up with some things I will not be doing this winter:

1)     Participating in Black Friday. Two words: Y’all crazy.

2)      Writing a letter to Santa. Dude’s not real. Someday we gotta accept it.

3)      Stressing about gift giving. Do you think the wise men worried about the gifts they brought to Jesus? “Yo, Melchior, which scent of myrrh should I bring – Dirty Spice or Eau de Tree?”

No – they were wise men. Give from your heart, and don’t worry about it.

4)      Shoveling snow. Not because I’m too good to shovel snow, but because I don’t live in a place where it snows…and I’ve gotta put a positive spin on that.

5)      Burning the Christmas cookies. I’m easily distractible these days, so I figured it would be a good idea to go ahead and add this to the list. One can hope.

6)      Going caroling. I can’t carry a tune. This will never, ever happen, and even if by some miracle it does, I promise I will only mouth the words. It’s for your own good if you’re within hearing range. Trust me.

7)      Watching the ball drop in New York on New Year’s Eve. Again, y’all crazy. Standing in the freezing cold, elbow to elbow with a bunch of strangers, unable to use the bathroom? I’ll pass.

8)      Believing the groundhog. Each year we wait with great anticipation to see if spring is just around the corner, and one thing I’ve learned is…that rascal’s on to us. He thinks we’re a bunch of suckers.

I feel better already just knowing I can mark some things off my list. May your holiday season be merry and bright! (But also relaxing and low-key.)

Do you have a winter bucket list? Or UN-bucket list?

Writer's Block

When I was younger, a long, long time ago, in a house that didn’t have fancy things like a computer or the Internet or Blogger, I scrawled my ideas on notebook paper in the forms of silly stories and poetry and carefully composed my thoughts in a little purple diary with a tiny lock on the side.

Sometimes I think I did better back then than I do now. There’s something oddly gratifying about the scribble of a freshly sharpened pencil lead against clean, white paper that doesn’t happen with keyboard clicking. Not to mention there was significantly less eye strain.

My first story, inspired by R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series, was titled “The Horror of the Bunkin Party.”

What is a ‘bunkin’, you ask?

Well, you see, people in the south tend to leave the g’s off the ends of their words, such as when they say something like, “I’m fixin’ to go to the store” or “I’m gettin’ some bacon cause I’m cookin’ turnip greens.”

My mother, a true southern gal, referred to sleepovers as ‘bunking parties’, and I assumed that ‘bunkin’ was just some sort of adjective that described a sleepover where you made pumpkin buns or something.

When I finally discovered the error, I promptly changed the title of my story to “The Horror of the Sleepover.” Cause, you know, I’m so original.

The story was hilarious. I think. I don’t really remember it. (If I have any regrets in my life, it is only that I don’t still have that story.)  I just remember giggling to myself as I wrote it and reread it a thousand times.

All my young life I dreamt of being a writer, not knowing that a writer is simply one who writes. I was a writer – I just didn’t know it. When an idea hit me, I stopped what I was doing to go write it down. I would get up in the middle of the night to write down a dream so I wouldn’t forget. I’d write down silly things that made me laugh, and it all brought me a great deal of enjoyment.

It’s easy to take a hobby too seriously and forget that it’s fun, that you actually love it. When you’ve so tightly woven something into your identity, it can feel like a chore. You think you have to do it perfectly all the time or it’s no longer a part of your definition.

My fifth-grade self knew that the thoughts didn’t have to flow out in flawless fashion. Even if it’s goofy, even if no one reads it, even if it doesn’t make a difference in the world, it’s still okay to write it. Even if it has a really bad title.

It’s what I would do…when I was younger.

The Dream – You Probably Have It Too

There is something strange that happens to me all too often.

I am in a very public, unfamiliar place, and suddenly I really gotta go. I search and search and finally locate a restroom, only to discover that everything that could possibly go wrong in a bathroom has gone horribly wrong.

Not only are the toilets missing seats, covered in urine (or worse), clogged with toilet paper (or worse), and just downright filthy and disgusting in every imaginable way, but there are also no doors on the stalls (or no stalls at all) and there are hordes of people milling about. So I end up precariously teetering above the tainted porcelain while trying to shield my goods from all the potential onlookers.

Thank God this only happens in my mind, in the form of a bizarre recurring dream.  (And, well, perhaps also at the occasional small town truck stop…)

Apparently, this is actually a super common dream for people to have. There are even forums on the Internet dedicated to the discussion of the awful bathroom dream, as I discovered in my googling attempt to unlock the puzzle of my psyche. Turns out bathroom dreams signify that you’re holding onto burdens or negative emotions and need a release, and the inability to get privacy in the bathroom indicates that you are afraid of being criticized for those emotions.

Fascinating.

My husband doesn’t have the bathroom dream. He has a recurring dream in which all of his teeth are falling out. Oddly enough, this is another popular recurring dream that supposedly signifies a fear of failure or lack of control.

I know – I sound so wise. But I’m no dream interpreter, people. I’m just telling you what the Internet told me.

Personally, the dreams I find most fascinating are not the recurring ones, but the ones that stick with you forever, even though you only had them once. Like the time I dreamed we had a baby girl, and her name was Rupus Milton. Yes, Rupus Milton. And I was so angry because I just knew that Clint had named her.

It must have been a prophecy. Years later, when I was pregnant with our daughter, he tried to convince me that her middle name should be Menodora. Thank you, Psyche, for the foreknowledge that my husband couldn’t be trusted with baby naming.

And thank you for letting me know that I need to release my emotions. I haven’t had the bathroom dream in quite some time, so perhaps I’m getting better at not keeping my feelings bottled up. I’m worried, however, that I may be getting a little too open with my emotions. Last night I had the famous “naked” dream (a version, anyway – I was just topless), and it didn’t really phase me. In fact I never seem to be bothered by missing clothes in my dreams.

Now what does that say about me?

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Today's post was inspired by the 'Dreams' prompt at Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop.

Judge Me Or Love Me

“Are you going to watch your little girl?”

We’d been traveling for about twelve hours and had just checked into a hotel for the night. We were road weary and wanting to get settled in before the baby got too far past his bedtime. After bringing most of our luggage up to our room, Clint stayed with Abram while Hannah and I went back to the car to grab a couple more things.

I pulled a bag out of the trunk and set it down. I needed to get something from the front of the car, so I told Hannah to follow me and made my way around to the passenger side.

I had just poked my head into the front seat when I heard a startling HONK! I stood up and saw a large truck idling in the parking lot, right behind our car. A man and woman glared at me from inside the cab.

“Are you going to watch your little girl?” The man angrily spat at me.

I furrowed my brow in confusion, which quickly grew to anger as the meaning of the words sunk in. Hannah stood three feet from me, gripping the side of the car and looking as confused as I was.

The couple continued to glare at me with the same look of disgust, as though they had just witnessed me trying to shove my child into the back of the trunk, or something far more sinister.

I have since thought of many wonderful things I could have said back to them, but I didn’t say a word. I simply took Hannah’s hand and went back to gathering our belongings from the car. They drove off, no doubt congratulating each other for not being as negligent and senseless of a parent as I was. Inside I was furious, but I chatted cheerfully with Hannah, determined to be the parent I know I am and show Hannah how to handle such matters with grace.

The words stung. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I actually started to question myself. I hated feeling as though I’d just been labeled as an unfit parent, even if it was by people I didn’t even know and will likely never see again.

I know I’m a damn good mother. That’s why I sincerely never thought I’d be on the receiving end of a look like that. But that’s because I tend to underestimate the power of self-righteous indignation.

We all do it. We all pass judgment, probably on a daily basis, and we feel justified for it because we know that others do it to us. I think many of us live by the “do unto others” rule and keep our snark to ourselves, but I think perhaps we need to reach a little deeper.

Why can’t we speak to each other out of love? Why can’t we extend some grace in those vital moments?

If the man had truly been concerned, he could’ve simply said, “Hey, just making sure you’ve got your eye on her” and chosen a route of compassion. He’d obviously misread the situation. He’d pulled around the corner at just the right moment to make an uninformed and rash judgment on a tired mama who protects her babies far better than he’ll ever know.

I know what he thinks of me doesn’t matter, but his mistake did teach me something. How many mistakes like that have I made? How many times have I spoken too harshly when I could have responded in love? When have I glared when I should have smiled?

That mom with the unruly kids in the grocery store. That driver who cuts us off in traffic. That angry customer on the other end of the telephone.

The truth is we could all use some compassion and kindness in our lives. Especially the strangers whose paths only cross ours for a moment. We only get one brief chance to love them.
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Today's post is a linkup with Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop.