Time to Vent
So there's something that's been bothering me since a little before Thanksgiving and I feel like ranting about it....why can't families be nice to each other? Why do family occasions have to be so dreaded by everyone involved? Why bother if no one enjoys it or looks forward to it? And more to the point, shouldn't family occasions be *fun*? Shouldn't families love each other and enjoy spending time together? But instead it seems like everywhere I turn someone is wishing they hadn't spent Thanksgiving with their families. Friends, and even *my* family, which I always thought of as kind of immune to this stuff....my mom spent Thanksgiving with her brother and his partner because Tory and I were at Dad's, and now she comes back wishing she'd stayed at home and been depressed by herself instead of spending hundreds on train tickets so she could be depressed in Connecticut. What? Is? The point? And why does it have to be like that? It's not right...it seems like no one makes an effort because they feel like they've already lost. They go into it assuming they're gonna bicker and be miserable, so bicker they do and miserable they are. It's sad.
And there's something else....especially with my mom, it seems linked to age. She and her brother are both over 50 now, and it's like they've given up. Like they're just tired of living, tired of caring. Like all they talk about is their money problems and their sick father and their aching joints. They act like there's nothing left for them. But there has to be something. They just won't look. And I don't exacly blame them...I mean, I don't know what it's like to be approaching old age. But it seems sad that this should happen. They have no joy in anything anymore. They've lost all their friends, they're not close to anyone anymore, and they can't even get along with *each other* anymore. They're old before they've turned 55. There are so few people left in the world to care about them....
....Will that happen to us? Will we just fade like that? Will we forget about everything good we have now and will have then and just sink into the depression of staring mortality in the face? Will we lose touch with everyone who's so important to us now, lose faith in everything we believe in? I hope not. I don't think it will. But they didn't think so either.
Maybe there's more than one reason to cherish it now. Maybe we'll forget to cherish it later.
Well, I'm making a resolution here and now. Today, at 1:17 AM on November 26, 2006. I will never lose faith. I will never stop appreciating it. I will never be old the way they are old. I will cling to everything I hold dear, and I won't let myself slip into self-inflicted loneliness. I will keep my friends, and I will keep my family, and I will keep my dignity, and I will keep my ideals. I will remember, always, that there is something to be happy about, and every day I will find it. That is my resolution.
And there's something else....especially with my mom, it seems linked to age. She and her brother are both over 50 now, and it's like they've given up. Like they're just tired of living, tired of caring. Like all they talk about is their money problems and their sick father and their aching joints. They act like there's nothing left for them. But there has to be something. They just won't look. And I don't exacly blame them...I mean, I don't know what it's like to be approaching old age. But it seems sad that this should happen. They have no joy in anything anymore. They've lost all their friends, they're not close to anyone anymore, and they can't even get along with *each other* anymore. They're old before they've turned 55. There are so few people left in the world to care about them....
....Will that happen to us? Will we just fade like that? Will we forget about everything good we have now and will have then and just sink into the depression of staring mortality in the face? Will we lose touch with everyone who's so important to us now, lose faith in everything we believe in? I hope not. I don't think it will. But they didn't think so either.
Maybe there's more than one reason to cherish it now. Maybe we'll forget to cherish it later.
Well, I'm making a resolution here and now. Today, at 1:17 AM on November 26, 2006. I will never lose faith. I will never stop appreciating it. I will never be old the way they are old. I will cling to everything I hold dear, and I won't let myself slip into self-inflicted loneliness. I will keep my friends, and I will keep my family, and I will keep my dignity, and I will keep my ideals. I will remember, always, that there is something to be happy about, and every day I will find it. That is my resolution.