The Dollar Tree Christmas

I laid under the Christmas tree. My six month old daughter was only a few feet from me. We were both gazing up through the branches, needles, and decorations. She was awestruck. It was the most interesting thing in the world to her. All I could do is smile and enjoy the moment. There were no presents under the tree. Christmas was a week away. My wife sat on our couch more beautiful than ever. Her hands were quickly and efficiently knitting a multicolored scarf. I'd watch her as her fingers precisely slipped the needles through the appropriate loops. I could never understand how she did it, but was glad that she could.
    My daughter couldn't crawl yet. The tree was enough to keep her occupied. Her little hands would try to reach, reach, reach for the branches above, but she would always fall short. Not having presents under the tree had begun to bother me. I tried to not let it. I told myself many times that it was a superficial desire. At the same time, I felt bad that I couldn't put anything under it for our first Christmas together as a family.
    I had recently graduated from college. Before and after graduating I struggled hard to try to find a good line of work. It was slow coming. I had to settle for a job at a call center. It wasn't ideal, but it would pay our bills. By this time I was already hating my job. The hours were bad. The pay was worse. The work was frustrating. Christmas wasn't supposed to be this way, I thought. It just reminded me of our terrible situation.
    At the beginning of the month, I came home happy that Christmas had arrived. We went over our finances and the smile went away.
    "We can't buy anything?" I said upset.
    "We don't have the money," my wife responded.
    "What are we going to do?"
    "I can make stuff for our family. We might just have to go without this year"
    "Ok," I said solemnly. "I guess that's our only choice"
    Even though my daughter was still a baby, I wanted her first Christmas to be rich with presents and toys. I wanted to spoil her with all the goodies she could get her hands on. That wasn't going to happen. I kept telling myself that this was life. I had to get over it. For weeks I put it away, but then seeing the tree empty was the ultimate reminder. It all came back.
    I was tempted to take the tree down one night. Tired and sick of having it remind me that we weren't able to put presents under it, I began to wonder what the use of a tree was this year. Why do we need this stupid thing? I thought. I never let my thoughts known to my wife, however. I let it go. I tried to put it out of my mind again.
    When I went to work my boss announced that a limited amount of overtime would be allowed for the next few days. I knew that I could only work a couple of hours of it, but thought that maybe this could help with presents. It was a long shot, but knew I should try. When I went over it, I had only made thirty dollars in overtime. There was no way that that would really do much of anything for presents. As I drove home that day I suddenly had a bright idea that seemed rather silly, but was something rather than nothing. It was worth a shot.
    I came through the door and told my wife to get our daughter ready to go out. She, of course, was wildly curious as to what I was planning. I told her it was a surprise. I could tell by the look on her face that she wasn't pleased, but was open and curious enough for any kind of surprise. Driving in the car I began to slowly explain what I was thinking until we finally arrived to our destination.
    "Listen," I said softly. "This might not be what we want, but it's at least something fun we can do, ok?"
    We parked in front of a Dollar Tree.
    "Why don't we take the thirty dollars and buy simple gifts for each other right now? It won't be much, but at least we can get ourselves something."
    I remember her face. I was expecting disappointment, her to say that we should forget it and go home, but I think that she realized how important this meant to me. She smiled brightly and said that it was a great idea. The store was small. Full of nick knacks, candy, and lots of useless things that no other store could sell, the Dollar Tree was extremely difficult to shop in for presents. She went one way and I went the other. We didn't want each other to know what we were getting for one another. The task of finding something simple made Christmas shopping difficult but challenging. I wanted to find something that she could use, value, and take to heart. This was easier said than done when your options were kitchenware and cleaning supplies. The feeling was exciting, however. I was enjoying myself. It took us both awhile. We zipped up and down the aisles until I had found everything for her, and she everything for me. The full price was much less than I had expected. We were able to save a lot of the thirty dollars.
    When we got home, I went into our room and she stayed out in the living room. We traded supplies back and fourth until all our presents were wrapped. Placing the several little items under the tree wasn't as satisfying as I thought it would be. I had enjoyed myself more spending time with them at the Dollar Tree.
    In my family, we always had the tradition of opening presents on Christmas eve, rather than Christmas morning. That night we sat next to the tree. My daughter sat up in my wife's lap. I read the Christmas story from Luke 2. Then we began to open presents. We went one by one unwrapping several cheesy, useless, and sometimes absolutely horrendous gifts we had gotten each other. It didn't matter. Each gift represented something of our personality. We both would tell each other what we were thinking when buying it. With every gift we laughed. The enjoyment of wondering what was next made that night fun and memorable. It's a Christmas that I will never forget. It reminded me that lots of gifts, spending lots of money, and feeling wealthy is not the true Christmas spirit. When all the presents were opened, and the gifts sat strewn on the floor, my wife and I kissed. Looking under the tree was my little daughter reaching, reaching, reaching for the branches. She caught one that time.
   

Multicolored Emotions of Funerals

What is it about different funerals that bring on varied emotions? I have only been to three funerals in my life. All three were of people I hardly knew, but wish I had.

My first funeral was under tragic circumstances. I personally had only met the two people who were involved in a fatal car accident a couple of times. My wife and brother in law, however, were very good friends with them. They were devastated. It was devastating for thousands. They brought happiness to everyone who met and knew them. It was odd for me. Surrounded by people who were personally hurt by the deaths, I had nothing to really contribute. I felt slightly numb. I grieved for those who experienced such an unfortunate loss, but outside of that my emotions were very minimal. I remember not sure how to react, to feel, to comfort. Sometimes it was as if I didn't even have a soul. Then I realized that it was the exact opposite. I was experiencing so many emotions that my own defense against the overwhelming flood was to shut down, be closed off, and try to think in solitude. I went into a room by myself to think. The feelings were very surreal. I didn't know them, but I grieved dearly for them as if I had known them for years and years. I never wept. There were enough tears. Instead I was internally waging war with my emotions. The conflicts of life lost, friends in pain, made me not sure of anything. The questions raged. I came back out feeling dark on the inside. Twisted and turned and stretched. How was I supposed to feel? The funeral was powerful. That's not how most people would see a funeral. That's how I saw it. The stories of the two, the lives they led, and how they touched different people was simply powerful. Many that day were transformed.

In contrast to a tragic young death, I was also at a funeral for a beloved elderly woman. My wife's grandmother, I saw her every Christmas. That was it. She was a frail lady. I always found her sweet and kind, and the stories I had heard matched those assumptions. Funerals for the elderly always feel different than the one's for the young. We rationalize that once you reach a certain age that it's only a matter of time before the end. "It was her time," they'd say. You rarely hear that at a young funeral. My emotions and rationale were no different. This certainly effected my wife and brother more than myself. Certainly through a sense of transference I tried to feel what they felt, grieved how they grieved. I was sad that I wouldn't get to know her better, sad that she wouldn't be with us for Christmas in the future, and ultimately sad that she wouldn't get to meet her great-granddaughter. But her life was rich, strong, and full of spirit and love. I was asked to be a pallbearer that day. I felt honored. I felt honored to be part of the family. Honored to say goodbye to someone so special in so many lives. It surprised me that these feelings drastically contrasted from the last funeral.

The last one affected me personally more than the last two. My nephew was prematurely born. He was too premature to be saved. The funeral was small, but my grief was tremendous. How can you grieve for someone you never met? It was a common feeling I had through all of these experiences, but this one pierced into me much more. Naturally, as it affected my family. I was excited for my sister. Excited to have a nephew. Excited to have a new member of the family.

Looking back over all of these I have had a mixed multicolored array of emotions. How they effected me were all very different, but the one constant that I find interesting is that they were of people that I hardly knew. I can only feel a sense of blessing that I have been spared the emotions of a funeral with someone I do know.

These Wires, They Connect Me

The other day I was speaking with some friends and we casually got onto the topic of being a writer as a profession. One of them candidly spoke, "That's like becoming an astronaut". Meaning that it's next to impossible. Of course that is how I thought for a long time. There is an attractive logic to it. A sense of cynicism that forces you to defeat yourself before you even get started. It's writer's blocks evil twin brother.

If we talked fifty to hundred years ago then I would have certainly agreed. Times have changed a bit since the roaring twenties, however. The internet age, like a double edged sword, has provided the ability for for thousands to write, publish, and get recognized. The other side of this is that it creates a heavy amount of competition while watering down the professionalism of the field. In effect the internet has made writers a dime a dozen.

I dare not get into a silly, trite argument about whether the internet is a curse or a blessing. I'll let the other one hundred thousand writers fight over that one. It is certain that the internet has accomplished one thing, which is create more egomaniacs and narcissists. As one article I read proclaimed, "Everyone has become a star". The pessimist inside me retorts, "In their own minds".

Certainly, there are those wonderfully delightful success stories of the stay at home mom that used Google Ads to become a millionaire through her blog. "You can too!" they declare. If this were true, of course, then everyone would have been millionaires by now. There is only so much to go around. Competition weeds out the weaklings struggling to make a dollar, while the dominant writers remain supreme. Even within a free for all system that the internet has provided, humanity must create something that divides and conquers.

The internet has opened the door into a completely new wonderland. Journey wisely.

Of Introductions

When I was young and in grade school, I had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up. For some odd reason at the age of eight I thought choosing my occupation then would be better than not knowing later, but what child actually knows what they want to do when they are that young? Not I.

The occupations would change from day to day each inspired by a movie or television show that I watched. At the playground I would announce my new job decision and on those days would act as if I was already hired to perform whatever job I had chosen. I remember specifically there was one guy picking on one of the girls. That day I had decided I was a cop.

"Stop! You're under arrest," I said knocking the kid down to the ground.
"What are you doing?"
"Are you going to stop picking on that girl?"
"Get off of me!"

We were both taken to the principal and paddled.

I had no idea what I was doing. Police weren't supposed to be paddled.

Even after four years in college, I was on the fence to what I wanted to do with my life. Isn't that what happens to most Americans in search of this fabled unicorn dream that grandpa Jefferson spoke about four score ago? We dream and dream and dream until our dreams are more dream than actual reality. We forget that to forge dreams, to entwine them into this hard and infertile reality, we have to toil hard in the soil under the beating sun. That was always my problem. I wanted things to come easy. To happen to me. We want things in America to just....happen. Ask the person who created the sweepstakes.

The job that I wanted could be compared to the girl next door. I never noticed it. I made it a friend, but not a serious companion. I had fun with it, but never dared to consider it for anything more. That is until my eyes were opened, much like when the hero in the story finally realizes that he indeed does love the girl next door, and I decided that I had to start writing as much as humanly possible. I had to keep writing until the last drop of blood dripped from my veins. When that day comes, at least I can die knowing I chased the unicorn.