The Meaning of Christmas:A Short Story

I haven't written fiction in a long time. Upon applying for scholarships, I decided to take a gander at writing a piece, addressing issues that seniors face. Inspired by the giving I witnessed last Christmas with Elf Anonymous, I addressed how I imagine the holiday might be seen through a senior's eyes.
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The Meaning of Christmas

It’s Christmas again. Just another day. I have no major plans. I don’t know why there’s so much hype about a holiday like this. It’s so much work, and for what? To have it dwindle away to nothing for the remainder of the year?

Susan became my inspiration for Christmas. Motherhood was so rich to me. When Susan would get excited, it was as though the golden flecks in her brown eyes would glow brighter. My Susan, she used to love Christmas. She would idolize me at Christmas time. I became her knight in shining armour, the star she’d wish upon at night. For one week, I was priority over the neighbourhood children. We baked cookies. We built snowmen. We decorated. It was a great time of year.

Christmas became my project. Many of my projects – the wool pants I knitted, the jars of jam I attempted to sell at the farmer’s markets, the parent’s committee I formed – all floundered. Christmas stayed. I created traditions. I built that foundation that continued for a lifetime. Two days spent on shortbread cookies, colouring dough with food dye, and using our hands to mold cookies like playdough for what cookie cutters couldn’t handle – fireplaces, snowshoes, and igloos. An affectionately named “snow day”, building snowmen, making snow angels, tobogganing, making tire d'érable, and sipping hot chocolate. Staying up late Christmas Eve, trying to shoo Susan to bed, so that Santa could make his appearance. Long after  Susan stopped believing in Santa, I continued to take a bite off a cookie and leave a note for her to find in the morning. It was her favourite part, even at eighteen years old. It was our little tradition.

Susan started dating at 16. Her boyfriends always liked my traditions more than their own family Christmases. They started to become a part of our celebration. One boyfriend, when Sus…my daughter turned eighteen, they became serious. He would help my husband Ron chop down a beautiful evergreen for the Christmas tree. He’d go on the ladder to hang the lights. I became fond of that boyfriend.

Sus… my daughter, she started to get busy. She got married to that boyfriend who helped chop down the trees, and moved out to the country side. There was still Christmas and birthdays. “Mom, I’ll come to bake shortbread”, she’d say, and we’d bake shortbread over her four day visit. One winter, we got silly and made snow angels in the back yard. She bought me flowers for my birthdays. A tradition she started. Christmas stayed more or less the same. It kept its foundation from all those years ago.

My daughter had her own daughter one day. Maddie was such a joy. My traditions were appreciated twice as much – albeit it with more presents under the tree thoseyears. My daughter started to miss my birthdays. I could make do without the flowers. Christmas stayed. Those traditions were exciting for Mad. “For the grandchild”, my daughter would say. “We’ll make a visit for that girl with the curly blonde hair.” I only saw them once a year, but it was the best time of the year.

Ron died. We had been married for 62 years. I decided to downsize to an apartment. I didn’t need the nurses on sight, but my daughter told me it would be good for later. A frame of Ron’s vows from our wedding day stays above my bed. “I’ll always support you and your projects”, he had said.

Christmas became harder. I didn’t have a stove, and there wasn’t anywhere for a tree. There wouldn’t be room for presents. That woman with the golden flecks in her brown eyes brought me to her house to see the child with the curly blonde hair. She’d try to get me to make shapes out of coloured dough for something called shortbread. “It’s like playdough!” The child would tell me. I didn’t like that tradition.

Last winter, a woman called and said “I don’t think I can bring you over this weekend. The highway driving is terrible.” I told her I thought she had the wrong number. That woman with the golden flecks in her brown eyes never came on Christmas morning. I wonder if she got lost. I ate turkey with my friends here at my home instead.

“No visitors today?” Nurse Rickman asked this morning during breakfast.

“I never have any.”

I don’t know who would have visited me today. Was I expecting somebody? Why would she ask me that?

It’s not like today is a special holiday, is it?

Why I Dread Graduating from University

I reviewed my class schedule the other day and realized I actually had one too many classes scheduled for the upcoming semester - my final semester - of University. I did a celebratory dance. Yes, just four more classes until graduation!

Four. More. Classes.

Ensue panic here. I don't actually have a plan for post-graduation. I don't have any job prospects in mind. I haven't looked into advancing myself to what my degree would qualify for. I haven't even done a single job search with "management" as its title.

And I'll let you in on a secret: I don't want to.

In fact, I've done a few recent job searches, for "fun jobs", like dog-walking, dog-sitting, pretty much anything with dogs. Some weekend work, like sitting in a call-centre. Just something "mindless" and fun to pay the bills on the side of my part-time administrative job, but that has nothing to do with me getting a degree.

But people expect, if you get a degree, you want the job.

I used to scoff at people who "wasted" their time getting a University degree, and then promptly worked at [insert fast food chain here]. That was before I was a University student and had the revelation of "why rush?". It's not that I never want to put my degree to use, it's just that I'd rather enjoy life before spending my life reading textbooks slowly transforms into working long shifts and having to do damage control on the sidelines. Plus, I'm not really qualified to be a manager just yet. I'm actually quite under-experienced and think I'd prefer the good old-fashioned method of working my way up the ladder, getting a couple of mentors, and specializing my skills. I really, really, love fund-raising for not-for-profits - a small component of my current job description. Yet, I don't have many projects I can put my name on for the fund-development committee. I'd like to work on that. I'd also like to work on managing a group of volunteers, a committee, a small group, before going in with the big fish.

Life is too short to define yourself by your job. 

I'd love to soak in my marriage, perhaps plan our future - with or without kids - and enjoy the fact that I educated myself, gave myself a great experience, and now have the paper qualifications to pursue a lot of the areas I am drawn to.

Yet, naysayers will continue to pressure me.

This is the part I dread. The part where family gatherings turn into berating me with questions about my career path. Did you apply for this recent posting? Did you ask your boss for a promotion? What are you doing differently at work now? Is there a lot of opportunity out there? When are you going to leave your current job? When will you start working full time?

They're going to happen. Those questions, and ones I haven't even planned for, will now become a part of my conversations in passing. I'll be dodging questions, avoiding confused stares, ignoring the echoes of everyone's collective thought, "what's wrong with her?".

Nothing is wrong with me.

Education does not always mean bigger and better things. Sometimes by circumstance, sometimes by choice. Whatever the reason, it's not something that can be explained to those standing on the outside looking in. The people who made it big right away with their degree, or wish they had a similar degree - or, perhaps, they are trying to proove to themselves why they never went for that degree, and how truly "useless" it really is. Those people will never understand your choices with your own education, because they are not you.

I'm not saying I will let my degree go to waste. Education is never a waste. Maybe someday I'll be a mother, and need to use the negotiation tactics I learned in Organizational Management: Managing Negotiations, or maybe my Introductory Accounting course will better help me budget for my savings. Or maybe I will move onto a management position one day, and use my degree to advance myself in the workforce. There's so many skills out there, why limit myself to just a "job" for the sake of it?

We Were Friends

I was informed, just minutes ago, that a long-time friend of mine had passed away. I'm not sure how to process it, but here are some of my favourite things about Matt Popoff:

He was eclectic.

Matt smoked a tobacco pipe. He was always ready with a random fact. He wanted to be a journalist, and had a vocabulary that put mine to shame (and I started reading chapter books when I was four).

He was eloquent.

Did I mention the vocabulary? 

Matt always had an affinity to playing the modern gentleman, and made sure to address me with a proper title, such as "little lady" or "miss".

He was sensitive

Matt and I had a routine of messaging each other once or twice a year online. Usually, it consisted of summarizing our lives in a single paragraph. The last time I caught up with him, he was approaching the one year anniversary of his father's death and was telling me about his emotional turmoil. Matt always felt honour towards his inner circle, and spoke of his bond with family often.

He was always attentive in conversations, and I don't think there was ever a time where he didn't make sure to ask how I was doing, or direct the conversation away from him and onto my stories.

He was a little weird

He dragged me into an arcade to play Dance, Dance Revolution (I refused). He would always be ready for a joke that passed off as "maybe serious". He didn't dress like any of the cool kids.

The thing about Matt was that we weren't really friends. We met on the Internet, through a site called Nexopia. We only met in person once, at West Edmonton Mall  - the dreaded day of Dance, Dance, Revolution (he was really good at it!). After that, we spoke twice a year for 12 years.

We Were Internet Friends

But I'll be damned if anyone tells me that the Internet can't brew meaningful friendships. How can you process the death of somebody you once knew, but never really knew? Why does it, then, feel strange to hear of their passing? Why are there still the memories, strong in your mind? If they weren't a real friend, then why do you know them well?

We Were Friends. 

RIP, my friend, Matthew Alexander Popoff.

My Soul Has a Name

It's name is "The Cabin".

People won't understand it the way I do. The Cabin lives within me, but it's a place too, down by Gull Lake. Most of people who I talk don't get it. "You sit in a place, without TV, without Internet, and just...stare at the trees?" Yes, yes, I do.

The Cabin encompasses a way of life that drags me into a meditative state. It's slow. It let's you be alone. It let's you enjoy company without distraction. You actually - get this - play board games with your uncle. Or you take a long walk on the beach. You - get this, again - enjoy washing dishes by hand, as you overlook a calm breeze blowing over the back yard. If you hear your neighbours, it's inviting, not annoying. You take naps when you want them. You eat ice cream once a day. You enjoy the rain pouring down the glass windows. You sip your coffee on the deck in the sunshine. You want to make an excuse to mow the lawn, just to drag out the day and enjoy the outdoors. Most of all, you take the time to smile at people you pass on the road. 

I've actually only ever truly meditated once in my life. It was at The Cabin. I wet walking, and three hours passed, and I hadn't remembered walking that far, or even that I was walking until I snapped to reality, and realized I was at the beach walking back towards The Cabin. My mind had completely gone blank for three hours, and all I remembered was listening to the stillness of my surroundings. Solitude is the greatest blessing on this planet. It is so, so important to be alone.

The Cabin has become my test for those who become close to me. I've never intentionally tried to "test" anyone by bringing them out there, but I've always wondered why I tend to either become closer of drift apart from them after an invitation to The Cabin. This past weekend, Jon said to me, "I don't know why, but I always fall more in love with you when I'm out here". I responded very quickly with 

"because it's my soul"

Upon further inspection, that is the honest truth. The Cabin is the one place where I am completely myself, and feel free to live life in the pattern I wish. Few people get to see that, but when the do - if they seem to not respond well, or can't hack the way I operate, it seems like part of me has been rejected. Things don't seem the same anymore after that. Jon gets to see my soul, and he loves it, and he belongs at The Cabin, where my soul exists.

The Cabin will always be that special piece of me, whether in reality or in memory.