12.31.2010
Happy New Year’s Eve!
May the next year bring much happiness, love, and warmth . If 2010 was crappy, may this next one be good, and if it was good may the next be even better. Most importantly, may it bring contentment. Appreciation begins with the simple and, like a ripple in a pond, expands. Hold your family close.
I’m curious what adventures 2011 will bring to Rob and me… Salut![1]
[1] A salutation in French and other languages to most commonly mean a toast, “to your health.”
12.25.2010
Merry Christmas!
Santa comes the night before at our house, but whenever Santa comes to your home I hope that, more than any item you may covet, your heart was filled with warmth and happiness to be surrounded by the ones you love and the ones who love you. My opinions of Christmas may differ from the traditional kind but it certainly is never wrong to appreciate what one has.
12.24.2010
Happy Christmas Eve! What a successful evening… It would’ve been great to have my mom and grandmother here but we were all together in spirit. I had a great time and the food came out particularly well, which I’m happy about.
I’m lucky and blessed to have such a wonderful family and should a little one enter our lives, I know that he or she (and I) will have a tremendous amount of support. And amidst the crazy amount of concerns and reasons for hesitation I have, knowing this gives me comfort.
12.23.2010
I’m taking a pass on writing anything remotely interesting. I’ve just been cooking for the past 4 hours and I have to wake up early tomorrow. Boo!
I will say, though, that while I prepped food, I thought about all those times growing up and spending Christmas in Chicago, and how my sister and I would be taken out after dinner to go see all the different decorated houses. We were told that when we got back Santa might be there dropping off gifts so as much as I enjoyed seeing all the different homes, I couldn’t wait until it was time to head back to my grandmother’s. And, of course, every time we arrived, Santa had “just left,” and I remember the feeling of disappointment that I, yet again, wouldn’t be the only kid in my class to come back to school and report that I had, indeed, seen and met Santa. Oddly, almost 30 years later, I could still remember that feeling of anticipation…
12.22.2010
I’ve been slowly getting ready for our traditional Lithuanian Christmas Eve dinner which, a couple of weeks ago, I was debating on whether or not I even wanted to do. It’s a lot of preparation. Growing up, we’d all be assigned different tasks in order to make the dinner but, now, it’s all on my shoulders.
I decided to do it because it’s the only thing I have left connected to my childhood. Not having any family in the States anymore (other than my sister but I’m the older one…) so it’s kind of up to me to follow through on any traditions. But what’s sad is that those traditions, as they stand now, are hanging by a thread. I’m having a rough time with this. When you’re a kid, the adults figure it out for you.
My mom, sister and I would always go to Chicago for Christmas. Very rarely would we not, so by Thanksgiving, there was a trip in the next month for which to plan. I looked forward to the travel and to the prospect of having an actual white Christmas. I’d see my extended family, get to eat my grandmother’s pancakes, and stay up late. It’s been many years since this and I’ve been floundering. At least for a while my mom was still in the States and we’d go to Lithuania for Christmas or my grandmother would fly out here. Things were different but we could at least pretend that there was some sort of “normalcy” to how they were before. But then that stopped and I haven’t been able to figure out what’s going to happen. Every year this time comes around and I have no idea what to expect. Honestly, I don’t know why I really care because Christmas is a fabrication of the Church to stamp out paganism, but, whatever the reason, it still makes me sad that there isn’t a definite plan that I know of ahead of time.
Part of me tells myself that things would change if kids were in the picture. I think parents want to create a similar experience for their kids and so family traditions, rituals, etc are created or brought back. And I’m OK with creating our own new traditions and rituals but this makes me feel scared. It’s one more example of getting older, of life moving forward and a separation from my past. This space that I’m in right now, and have been for a while, puts me in limbo and the unknown is always scary. I don’t know when I’ll next have a Christmas with my mom and my grandmother, if at all, and so I’m left to reinvent this holiday for myself and my (new) family. As much potential as this might present, it’s bittersweet. But in life, I guess, that’s nothing new.
11.25.2010
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and their families! I hope we take inventory of all the little (and large) ways we’re blessed and remember to keep things in perspective.
To those of you with children, cherish them and thank them often for bringing all the joy that they do into your lives.
To those of you without children and not by choice, be thankful you have a partner who shares your struggle and on whom you can lean. I hope you get your wish but if not, remember there are many children in need of love and care.
To those of you without children and it’s so by choice, I’m sure you’re thankful for many things and I hope you express the thanks often and find other ways to share the love in your heart.
To anyone without kids but like I, who is on the fence, I hope you’re thankful for this retrospective journey. If you’re anything like me, I’m thankful for being given the time to weigh the options, to see different perspectives, and to be given whatever time I need to think. I’m thankful because, if I have a kid, I feel this journey will help me be a better parent.
11.23.2010
Each year, around the holidays, I feel more in limbo. There are certain routines and rituals I’m used to at this time of year because of what I grew up with but now, being married, and especially now with my mom living elsewhere, I feel like there’s no concrete routine or ritual in our family. We go over to Rob’s parents house, which is always fun and I’m lucky enough to adore them, so that’s not a problem. But I feel an emptiness in terms of knowing exactly what to expect.
Growing up, we always went to Chicago for Christmas. We always had a traditional, Lithuanian Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas was always spent at our cousin’s house with the entire extended family. How I miss those days! Rob’s extended family is all back east, so there's just a tiny group of us out here.
Last year, I made the traditional Lithuanian Christmas Eve dinner myself and wore myself out. I wish I could say that’s the only reason I’m considering not making it this year but the fact of the matter is I don’t know if I can eat the food. Not only is it fattening, it wreaks havoc on my digestive system. So I’m finding myself deeper in limbo because I’m not sure I can continue that little bit of my childhood. I know that when you’re married new memories and traditions should be created but frankly, Rob dislikes the holidays, so any “tradition” that were to start would come from me. And I feel somewhat alone in that.
We can’t even have our fake Christmas tree anymore because of our cat who eats it irritating his medical condition. Well, there’s that and the fact that he and the other cat climb the tree. I don’t know if we could have a real tree, but I’d hate to spend money on one only to find out we can’t. So now I have to figure out what we’re going to use instead…if anything at all.
This is where I think having a kid would help the situation because you try to find ways to make this time of year special for him/her. You want him/her to have the same kind of memories you yourself had. But is that any reason to have a kid? So you’re “happier” during this time period? We’re each responsible for our own happiness.
I know this offers a blank slate, an opportunity to start our own traditions…but I’m not sure how to go about it. And I’m not sure how ready I am to put parts of my childhood behind me.
10.11.2010
Last week, I put out the Halloween decorations like I have every year for the past 11 years. Halloween has always been my favorite day. I remember my mom making our costumes and looking forward to trick-or-treating. There’s something about that ritual that I’ve always loved and, I think, what I like most about it is that it’s the only day of the year that unifies absolutely each and every one of us (except for Jehovah’s Witnesses). It doesn’t matter the race or religion because we all celebrate Halloween somehow.
Decorating the place for any holiday always puts me in a good mood. I remember during grad school being stressed, convinced that I was a failure, and taking time out to put up decorations would immediately lift my spirits. But for the past 2-3 years, my mood isn’t lifted as high as it was once. I took note of that about 3 years ago but I didn’t process it, thinking that maybe it was because I was especially stressed at work.
Then last year I felt the spirits-not-getting-lifted-as-much-as-they-should even more. I probably could’ve given an answer as to why, were I to be pressed for one, but no one asked and I didn’t share so, as what comes naturally to me, I suppressed it. But this year, I couldn’t ignore it and I blame the console in the kitchen and the mirrors hanging over it.
See, each year I tend to put the same decorations in the same place. This year, though, I switched things around. I recently hung some mirrors in the kitchen so that we’d get outdoor light reflected in to what is our cave for an apartment and cleared a lot of stuff from the top of the console. With the space I created, I found a new home for some of the decorations and I ended up really liking the display I made. I took a step back, pleased with what I saw, and yet, despite the pleasure, the look reflected back at me in the mirrors was telling me something different.
I had no one with whom to share that particular moment. As excited and giddy as I was, I asked myself, “For whom are these decorations?” I originally got them because each year I would throw a party but that stopped a good 5 years ago. And though I still keep putting them out, I looked in the mirror and asked, “So what?” I might take great pleasure in the festive way the place looks, but there’s something missing. There’s a sparkle to these decorations that has faded, a sparkle that I see in the decorated homes with kids. This realization, or a more mature way of putting it is this acceptance, makes me feel a little lonely.
04.01.2010
Happy April Fool’s Day!
This week is Easter week and I’ve been thinking a lot about how the holidays were when I was growing up. Twice a year, for Christmas and Easter, I’d get a new holiday outfit – usually a dress that my mom picked out – to wear to church. My grandmother would always fly out for the Easter holidays (and we’d go to Chicago for Christmas) and there’d be all this food preparation depending on the holiday and for Easter our traditional Lithuanian egg dying. I would always give something up for Lent, usually chocolate, and then Easter morning gorge myself giving myself a stomach ache before mass. All these little routine family traditions are something I really miss…kind of like I was talking about yesterday.
I understand that having kids could relieve some of this. With a bambino in the house there’s suddenly a need to do the Easter egg hunts, and baskets, and Easter bunny stories, family get-togethers, etc. But I sometimes wonder if there’s isn’t this weird transformation that happens in that whatever emptiness we may feel or whatever sadness we may feel, and we substitute it or sugar-coat it with having kids. Kids let us relive our childhood memories creating a kind of deja-vu that, perhaps, provides an odd sense of contentment.
03.31.21010
Rob and I have a number of favorite TV shows that we watch – mainly my picks, hee, hee, hee – and, last night, we were catching up on one of them, Parenthood. At one point during the show, Rob turned to me and said that the show builds up your stress and then eases it by having some touching moment that makes you want to cry. I agree. There have been very few shows, in my opinion, that were worth watching. Most family-oriented TV shows throughout the 90s and 2000s were so demeaning to family and, as a matter of fact, I just saw a blurb in the LA Times about how family shows are now changing to softer dialogue. I think this is great. Shows like Everybody Loves Raymond, for example, I thought was a good show at first, but after watching it a bit more closely, I realized how demeaning it is to men. This is a step backward. Feminism isn’t about putting down men and making them feel worthless, it’s about acceptance and fairness.
But back to the show. My favorite part of the day is when we all settle in for the evening after dinner and watch a little TV or catch a movie. We convene in Rob’s office (because that’s where I insist the TV be) and our two cats follow us in there and settle themselves on my lap, sometimes on top of each other, sometimes next to each other, but always on my lap. It’s a lovely feeling to be there with everyone I love and I sometimes wonder how much a child is going to alter this picture. I’m not saying this negatively.
There was a scene toward the end of Parenthood where everyone’s hanging out at the grandparents’ house and the guys were playing some basketball, the women, of course, were by the food and with the children, and the scene just brought me so much contentment. It made me think about all the x-mas holidays when we went to Chicago and how on x-mas day we’d go out to Indiana to my cousin’s and spend the day there with, like, 50 family members. Those big family gatherings are something I miss more than anything. There’s something about big families and holidays and the feeling of “belonging”. There’s a routine, there’s a system, and, as a kid, I never realized just how important this all was. It made me think about how empty I’ve felt since my grandmother moved back to Lithuanian in 1998 and that part of my routine came to a complete halt not to be picked up again, most likely, until we have kids.
Rob and I have a ton of friends here in LA and they’ve definitely become family so much so that when we talk about moving to another city it gives us both pause when we realize exactly who we’d be leaving behind. But these friends have their own families that they go to during the holidays or birthdays or other special occasions. They don’t come to our house. And now that my mom lives in Lithuania, my biological family has shrunk even more to just me and my sister; something I don’t want to ever lose but might. It makes me wonder why family becomes more important to us as we get older and becomes of the utmost importance to us when we have kids. When we’re teens we want nothing to do with our families but at some point that switches and, if we’re lucky enough, we still have them around and we can appreciate them. For all the havoc that families create, it’s those little precious moments we have with them that stay in our minds and hearts and maybe that’s a contributing factor to why people have kids.
