Caterwauling

Last night, I stopped by our church’s Christmas party (wow, I can say “Christmas” and “party” in the same sentence now. Weird) for a whopping 20 minutes. I went late, got lost and was downright bored. I talked to the pastor, who I am growing very fond of, and he introduced me to someone I would like to talk to more often and who gave me her contact info if I ever wanted to grab a cup of coffee.

After that I walked around and walked out. Nothing personal, just a little too kid-friendly for my tastes. But today, actual members of the church were asking what happened to me, as they were looking for me.

I’m like a kid in a classroom when it comes to Sunday services — I sit in the very back row. It’s a good group of people who hang out there, which is cool because when we are asked to greet our neighbors, we all know each other. (Oh, how awkward it was during my first few weeks when I didn’t know a soul there.)

Anyway, today I was looking at the guy who always sits in front of me, but oh my God — today I got a really good look at him and I realized why he looked vaguely familiar. From his profile, and maybe even somewhat from the front, he looks like a face I haven’t thought about in ages — but certainly haven’t forgotten about .

I admit that I found my mind wandering during services, back to a “long ago and far away” time. This is someone I miss greatly, when I do remember him. The love and the pain ran its course … for both of us … but he wasn’t easy to get over, especially not when we both knew there was a lot of emotion and certainly passion left that was going to remain unexplored.

I made my peace with my heart back then that if the universe really wanted this to work out, it would help us find a way. And if that way means in the next lifetime, then so be it … we’ll have that same instantaneous connection next time around that we found this time — which we’d both recognized as maybe having felt in a lifetime before this one.

I don’t tell this story to get hung up in the past, or to even pretend that it’s going to stay in my head after I hit the “publish” button on this blog entry. But to tie it into today’s message at church, the pastor said something interesting that I had to write down.

To paraphrase:

We’re all trying to get somewhere in life … to be somewhere or to be someone or to find someone or something. And no matter what the ladder we’re trying to climb — career, relationships, friendships or otherwise — sometimes we lean those ladders against the wrong walls.

That struck me for more than just a second. The context was that if you’re stressed out in certain areas, you may be hitting resistance for a reason — and that reason might be that you need to either stop fighting the battle alone or maybe it’s that you shouldn’t be fighting it at all because you’re in the wrong place and … yep … climbing the ladder but not to the right goals.

Inside my head, something clicked with that analogy. Leaning your ladder against friends who crumble at the first signs of having to make a positive deposit instead of a negative withdrawal from the friendship bank account. Killing yourself to do a great job in a vocation that really doesn’t feel right. Hoping and praying for a relationship to work out that just isn’t meant to be.

Taking it a few steps further, maybe there’s a reason that some doors close and that other, newer doors don’t open. And try as we might to rush at those doors with random, heavy blunt objects, they still won’t open. Why is that?

Everyone is trying to tell us to rely on patience and faith, but when you’ve been hoping and wishing for something, when do you write it off as “that’s clearly not God’s plan for me” and when do you dig in your heels and continue to say, “I believe in you, Great Pumpkin”?

I don’t want to be like Linus, stuck out in the pumpkin patch while waiting for some mythical occurrence that only flourishes inside my own head. But I don’t want to go about my business and not be there to get the gift(s) I’ve waited so long to receive, either.

I guess all you can do is hope for the wherewithal to know which course of action is right to take.

I don’t know if my ladder is leaned against the proper wall. I don’t even know that there is a “right” wall at this point. All I know is that I’m doing my climbing wherever I can find hope, and I don’t think it would be in my heart to want for things that just aren’t meant to be. Because my heart is the most-sincere patch I can name, one that’s certainly a good candidate for the Great Pumpkin if it happens to be thinking of coming around. …

My tree stands undecorated, the house looks like a hurricane went through it, I left work at 10 p.m. and I’ve got another hour to devote to it today so I can enjoy my damn holiday already, and I’m supposed to go to a Christmas party tonight.

No complaints — just too brain-dead to keep plugging when all I want to do is eat and sleep. And eat. I’m very stressed right now. And I stress-eat. (Five Guys burger for breakfast, anyone? Don’t think I didn’t.) I was too tired to eat “real” food last night (although the office was filled with sweet treats in all our myriad kitchens), so yum.

Anyway, I just bought my ticket to go somewhere on New Year’s. We’re looking at nearly $100 for the honor of being “somewhere” and getting a glass of champagne and maybe some cheese and crackers. We’ve also got dinner reservations beforehand, which I am looking forward to. (And will probably cost as much as the midnight event!)

The way I figure, there is no Christmas in my house this year, but if there’s one holiday I need to celebrate, it’s New Year’s. I am a firm believer that whatever you’re doing at midnight will set the tone for the year. Last year I was with friends, and although my year turned to absolute shit, I figure it at least started off on the right foot.

I also made reservations on New Year’s day for a nice restaurant. Yeah, I’m starting off the new year broke as all hell but at least I won’t be hungry.

It was a struggle to decide to go out because there are so many obligations (read: guilt trips, mostly self-inflicted) to overcome. But I had the choice to greet the new year wishing that I were somewhere else, or else I could go out and be overjoyed that I was out doing something fun and hopefully memorable. A friend gave me the advice to buy the ticket and make a commitment for the next day to balance the skipping out for midnight.

In that, everybody wins — and I win twice.

And that, my friends, is an occasion worth celebrating. If the new year brings double the wins, then it’ll be a delightful year, indeed.

Most days, we’re all holed up in our offices with our respective doors shut, as we are all engaged in heavy-thinking work. We are not hiding in our offices like the non-productive folks at my last job, who blatantly left their doors open while they took naps and competed in Solitaire championship games all friggin’ day.

Anyway, we all had our doors open today, and I tell you, I would have gotten more peace pulling out my laptop in the middle of the Metro Center station. My beloved neighbor (I really do like him. We kid because we love!) was so loud today that someone coming to meet with me thought that my neighbor was in my office, thanks to the volume. I realize now that this can come in very handy — everyone thinks I’m in a meeting! My door will be closed more often.

But the real kicker was that I was listening to my iPhone without the earbuds. (I think a cat may be trying to hang herself with them right now — can’t find ‘em in my purse.) And that’s just a bad, bad idea for the number of comedy albums I store in there. Case in point, a bit came on from Lisa Lampanelli, (“Pillow Talk,” if you’re familiar.)

If you’re not familiar, it’s the track that starts off with:
“‘… See ’cause I’m an older white bitch and I started banging black guys late in life, so I’ll be honest — it scared the hell outta me. …”

*thunk*

I’d apologize to my neighbors, but meh. I think forgiveness is just understood on all of our parts. Like Lisa’s album title, we all just “Take it Like a Man”!

I’ve gotten many compliments and more than a few questions on my blog category “Being a Girl.” It’s basically where I make blog entries that no man would dare make, let alone even think of. It’s also where I can just let it all hang out and blame it on carrying ovaries and a C-cup everywhere I go.

Anyway, in today’s “Being a Girl” news, I am struggling because my bra does not go with my shirt. And I am wondering whether it would be less of a pain in the ass to change the bra or change the outfit. Ladies, am I alone in thinking I should just go for a different outfit?

In other girly randomness, in my last entry, I talked about the New Hampshire woman who took her husband’s ashes to Heinz Field for his first/only Steeler game. But what I neglected to add was that I told my friends that my last request is to have some of my ashes sprinkled into Jon Bon Jovi’s pants — lord knows it’s the only way I’m going to get there!!!

My friend D. hooked me up with this story today:

“Woman takes husband’s ashes to Steelers game.”

“PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) — Richard Desrosiers never made it to Heinz Field to watch his beloved Steelers play football, but his widow helped him fulfill his dream in death.

Thanks to some help from sympathetic donors, Kathleen Desrosiers attended Sunday’s game, bringing an urn with some of her late husband’s ashes, as well as his ring and two pictures of him. He had died in March of a brain tumor.”

I was sort of waiting to read that they scattered his ashes on the field, or at least in one of the, oh, three nearby rivers. But I guess he made the travels with her and went home to New Hampshire.

And that’s why this story means so much, not (just) that it’s about a Steeler fan but because of how he got there:

“Amy Litterini, a western Pennsylvania native who now lives in New Hampshire, was the couple’s counselor during Desrosiers’ yearlong battle with cancer.

She arranged for the purchase of the two tickets to Sunday’s game and raised money for Kathleen Desrosiers and one of her sons to spend a night in a Pittsburgh hotel.”

I really needed to read that today, to believe that those who have passed on are still with us somehow — even if not in spirit (which I hope they are) but in influencing the things we grow to love. I guess, in that regard, we can’t help but let them live on.

And it also warmed my charred little heart that someone would be so kind as to make this dream possible, when anyone else would have walked away and not done anything like this for the family. Shit, my grandfather’s brothers have (thankfully) evaporated into thin air — not a one has sent so much as a Christmas card, although I hear they’re all bitching amongst themselves that Mom doesn’t call any of them. Fools.

The greatest gift that family can give is the gift of getting the hell out of our lives, and I’m eternally grateful for that. Although … I wouldn’t let them know that they were doing us a favor, because they’d probably have to end the peace and call to antagonize us!

Someone mentioned the other day that there are only “X” days left till Christmas, and that number was in the single-digits, and a part of me went, “When the hell did it become Christmas?”

(I really need to stop using “hell” and “damn” in sentences that have to do with church, Christmas, God or Jesus.)

It doesn’t feel like Christmas. Last year after my grandfather died on Thanksgiving, it sure as hell wasn’t Christmas. (There I go again.)

This year, I put up my artificial spiral tree in a fit. I was angry and needed to take out some aggression. I took the tree out of its box for the first time in five years (I’ve moved three times without ever opening that damn box) and fluffed all the branches in the space of an hour.

That was three weeks ago. And do you THINK I’ve managed to stick a strand of lights (or four) or an ornament on it? Nope. Not a one.

It’s been a busy season, but not the type with shopping and hustling and bustling. I gave up on writing Christmas cards four years ago. Don’t get me wrong — I BUY cards every year; I just never get around to saying hello to people because I never have stamps and, quite frankly, we’re all transient. Everybody moves a lot.

I struggled a couple of years ago with sending a card to friends who have a daughter with a terminal illness. Even today, I presume she might be gone but that kid had a way of hanging in there. I hope she’s still with us, but you can’t write a card to R and J “and family” if you don’t know what has happened. But you can’t leave off the “and family” or else other people would think you rude. So, fuck it — too much thought is required for writing cards.

Last year I sent some of my friends a text message to wish them a Merry Christmas, and we learned that I call people so infrequently, most of them didn’t know who the hell I was and they, in fact, texted me back to either ask who the hell I was OR they called me by someone else’s name that they know in my area code because it couldn’t POSSIBLY be me.

There was only one good Christmas in my world, two years ago. My mom and grandfather had just moved into a cute little house; I was doing well and went trucking up to Pittsburgh bearing better gifts than we’ve been able to give. And that was it. That was the first and only real Christmas in a real house with a real dining room table and a real reason to look forward to getting up on Christmas day.

I’m not saying the holiday is about gifts. My expenses have gone up, and gifts are the last thing on my mind. I did go out looking for a nativity set, though — I figured that since I’m actually not running screaming from this going-to-church thing, maybe I’d approach the holiday differently this year. I haven’t found a nativity set I like — I figure the right one will find me. Hopefully at 75% off on an after-Christmas deal!

D.C. is bizarre and it contributes to the lack of Christmasy feelings. I drove down to see the National Christmas Tree but you can’t see it from a car and the closest parking spot was in, oh, Rosslyn. And it was raining. So yeah, that didn’t go as planned.

I live in apartment/condo hell. Meaning, nobody has houses around here. There are some townhouses, sure, but that’s about it. You don’t see people decorating around here. I attribute it to the lack of “real” houses (i.e., no trees/hedges) and the fact that you have about 40 billion belief systems represented here. Other than the occasional wreath on a door or a lighted tree in a window, the only way you’ll see neighborhoods decorated is if you watch the holiday specials on HGTV.

I don’t know. It seems like last year I had a sad little Christmas, and this year it’s sort of an indifferent one. My best friend’s grandma died this week, so she’s having that same shroud over her that I carried last year. But at least she can deal with her grief and go about her life. I’m glad that one of us can, anyway.

And, seriously, Dan Fogelberg died. Talk about the ultimate kick in the ass during the holiday season. He wrote the only “(Same Old) Auld Lang Syne” that anyone knows the lyrics to. *sigh*

I can’t wait for 2008. This year has GOT to go. Most people are counting down the days till Christmas — I’m counting down till the day after New Year’s. I have an offer to go out New Year’s Eve and would love to take advantage of it, but there’s a “but” in there somewhere. Oh well. I guess anywhere that I will be drinking (preferably A LOT), it’ll be a good holiday.

I usually blog after church but, meh, I went shopping instead yesterday. Because, well, I took issue with some points, and one of those points was geared toward those of us who tend to take issue with some of God’s creatures.

I mean, one of the lessons was to realize that each person on this earth was created in God’s image, and that we all share the same father, so to speak. That is, we all have possess the same divine DNA and we should stop insulting/talking about/being sarcastic about/disrespecting each other because God doesn’t like it when his children are the butt of the joke.

So, I’m trying my hardest to not look at people who stand in our way, thwart our every effort or fail to pull their part of the load. But I still have a hard time believing they were cut from the same mold I was and that God can look at them with nothing but love. Don’t tell anyone, but I think a lot of these yahoos were either adopted or were the milkman’s kids, because they have GOT to be the exception from “don’t mess with the Lord’s anointed” because they sure as HELL don’t treat people the way they would want to be treated in return.

Anyway, today I’m sort of struggling with credit, or lack thereof. I pretty much have spent my career behind the scenes and I wonder whether it’s getting too late to make a real, bona fide name for myself in anything. I have the skills and talents and smarts to make it in one of the four fields I’ve pursued. But would anyone know me? Many of you might know my work. But my name is as far from it as Perez Hilton is from a ladies’ locker room.

Lately, I’m struggling with my motivation. Paychecks are a nice motivator, of course. I don’t know. I guess I thought I’d be famous by now. I also thought I’d be a size two, so I admittedly am a dreamer!

Speaking of places where everybody apparently DOES know your name, whether you want to be anonymous or not, I decided to become a “real” member of my church. I figure, I go all the time and make anonymous donations. I guess it’s about time I made this journey an official one. I have no idea what membership entails, but I asked for more info on it. Besides, I need all the help I can get on this plane of existence!

One other thing I took issue with was that they said that everything we have in our lives is on loan from God. I believe in it, don’t get me wrong. You can’t take it with you, and all that jazz. But I guess I wondered why some people have so much more than others. I’m not throwing a self-pity party here — I’m asking why families are living in/scavenging through garbage dumps for the source of their daily bread and yet other people release an obnoxious earworm or star in a movie that happens not to suck, and they take their rewards and snort ‘em off a mirror.

I guess the lack of balance in this world has always irked me, and made me question whether there was a God or not. These days, I’m fairly certain there’s someone or something out there, because it would devastate me if there weren’t. But I just spend a lot more time wondering why when I should instead be helping to do something about it.