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Whole Hog


 I learned early on you don't always get what you want in life. You can circle as many things as you want on a Toys R Us Christmas mailer and get zero of those things. You can wish for a Lite Brite year after year and be 45 years old and still not have one. This is life. Not supposed to be fair. Not supposed to be used to just given things you want. As a result my life was dedicated to what needed to be done and who needed what. Not what I wanted or needed but everyone else. I didn't get the things I wanted so I just thought that's how it was. Everyone else deserved the things. Not me. 

I would need new shoes yet buy shoes for others. New jackets for them, worn out spray paint hoodies for me. Treat others to delicious restaurants, find bollweevils in my box of rice at home. Make big holiday meals for the family when I was tired and not feeling festive... and put on my best Pollyanna positive face to serve it and kinda cry inside that the responsibility was always on me to make all the good things happen all around me. If I wanted a holiday I had to make it happen. 

I got tired this year. 

The little 12" tree could sit where the cats knocked it off the mantle. The lights could stay dead. Gifts? More gifts after I've given all year? Really? 

I am the Grinch apparently. But no Who's down in Whoville are going to surprise me with magic Christmas love and a giant roast beast I didn't have to cook. This was the year the elf got tired. I bought a ham like I always do and the usual "can't make it" " not feeling it" dance started... and I have to agree to both of those things. Patricia can't make it and is not feeling it. Yet Patricia will make it and deliver it because that's what Patricia does. 

Patricia knows what's it's like to miss her Dad at the holidays and how he would want me to be my very best and spend time with the family because life and time are fleeting, liquid things... Going down the drain every minute. Might be my last Christmas here? Might be a loved ones last? 

And in knowing those things the elf doesn't stop. The elf cooks the ham and puts on the smile and delivers them in her shabby shoes and worn out spray paint hoodie with a smile. And she does it whole hog with mince meat pies and everything. 

Maybe the Christmas spirit is about forcing yourself out of a selfish state of tiredness to bring smiles to people who are trying to decline your invitation to Christmas dinner? I'm still pondering this and many other things at the grand age of 45 on the planet. 

Smoke em if you got em, feed em if they're still around.... That's the best I got in the holiday spirit department this year. ❤️ My Lite Brite is dark this year and I'm ok with that. 

With love, 

The Elf 

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