Gifts

 Every Thing


I’m so excited I get to give for Christmas! I think that is one of the things that nobody can take away from me, but they can manipulate for me and make me question whether it is me doing it because I like it or because I expect it. My family said I was “such a giver”, “always a giver”, things like that. I heard it so much that I just assumed that giving was what I did. I gave until it hurt, and it hurt badly at some points. As much as it has been misconstrued in my past, this year, it’s back to being a good thing. I wish I could give more. Perhaps it is consumer culture telling me I need to look at this sale and that sale. Perhaps it is FOMO on the next thing that someone I know might be able to use. That might be it. But now that the shopping is finished, I am so glad we got the shopping and wrapping finished!

Another part of stuff is having. I’ve been with more books than I could possibly read in years due to my father letting us have control of my mother’s Social Security payout money that went to us as deceased survivors until we were 18. I bought books, and mostly only books. I loved books, and I loved reading. I also loved clothes, but books were my main passion. I loved stories and learning! Even before college, I outgrew most of my books, and getting rid of those possessions was a grief process all its own, but nothing compared to moving from Missouri to Pennsylvania by plane. Everything had to fit into one carry-on and one checked bag. Everything I owned. I don’t know how people do it! 

In Pennsylvania, I moved in with a host family for a short time while I got my life together and saved up money to begin life anew. We went to Walmart, and I bought underwear and socks, because I wasn’t wasting valuable space on those easily replaced things! Looking around at Walmart, I did the usual mental inventory of “I have that. I don’t need that” and had to stop too many times with “but I don’t have that anymore, and I don’t have money to replace that right now.” Store after store, for months and years, I would see a shirt I owned or something very similar and say to myself “I have that” and a little piece inside me died when I realized that I didn’t. Even after that went away and I stopped feeling that feeling, the reminder sometimes popped up. Stuff is just stuff, but having stuff brings with it a sense of security you don’t realize you have until it’s gone.

Which brings us full circle to receiving gifts. This is one I really, truly struggle with. Unless it is something that I will immediately put into use or know immediately where it will go, I have a disappointment when someone gives me a gift. That is what makes me dread Christmas. People feel obligated to give you gifts, and really it’s about being together and sharing company. It’s a time to remember those who passed before us and remember the holidays they had with us, and it’s all about the memories. People glibly say “it’s the thought that counts”, but this Christmas I’m going to remember that it is the love of the people I’m around that is the true gift, whether or not physical gifts are exchanged.

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