As I've said lately to those few who will listen, I am glad to have survived the holiday season. It was quiet -- too quiet: my kids were all celebrating a wedding in Chicago, some friends were out of town, and other folks hereabouts were doing their own thing.
I have heard of several local get-togethers to which I was not invited; for the first time since we got here, I haven't been on the "A" list. I've decided to look at it as yet Another Fucking Opportunity for Growth (remember AFOG?). It feels a lot like the years when I would start in a new school (all of them), and not fit in, ever. I remember alternating between relief that I didn't have to worry about conforming to a cultural ethic with which I was entirely unfamiliar (small-town Mississippi in the late fifties, for a horrifying example), and loneliness of sometimes frightening proportions. I was, as I have said before, pretty much an only child since my sisters were close in age and at least had each other to fight with (a lot). For the most part I did a good job of entertaining myself. I'd read, listen to music, play with my dog, annoy my mother -- that kind of thing. Now, when the neighbors are yokking it up, I read, I listen to music, I play computer games, I read some more, I play with my dog, I annoy my roommate, then read some more. On the whole, the periods of loneliness, then as now, have been few and short-lived.
I've been watching a lot of movies (the writers' strike has struck us all); a recurring theme has been social acceptance, and here I go again. Tonight it was "Little Miss Sunshine" -- a perfectly delightful movie, and once again the nonconformists won the day. The family had each other, and that was all they needed. Dwayne said, "It's ALL a beauty pageant, isn't it? From beginning to end?" I have to say there are times when that seems to be true. Maybe it's not a beauty pageant up here on the mesa, but there is something that everybody does that I don't do, or haven't done, or there is something that nobody would EVER do, that I've apparently done. God knows what, but there it is.
It's not a new dilemma for me, but it has come around again and again over the years, and I have learned that when something does that, it is indeed AFOG, and I'd best tend to it. I have to decide if it matters that I'm not on the "A" list, and if it does, how much scrambling I'm willing to do to get back on it. If I decide that it doesn't really matter in the long run, then I have to figure out how to honor myself better, or more consistently, so these stomach-drops don't happen.
How important am I to the world? Probably exactly as important as I think I am, at any given moment. I have looked with pity on people who mistake attention for affection, and affection for love; they never get that cup full, even when they get what they think they want. Most of those people are a lot younger than I, and I think, a little smugly, that they have a lot to learn. Apparently I do, too. Karma she shall kick back.
Good God. Is this a New Year's Resolution? Does it count if it's too amorphous to state in twenty-five words or less? Probably. I will go so far as to say, "I'll try to love everybody better, harder, more clearly and deeply, and that includes myself."
That will just have to do.
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