https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVxC-QKIxcY

Truly living up to its RAMBLING TITLE tonight


Saturday November 17, 2018
750Words.com

2018 called. It wants its year back. When the hell did it become the end of the year? And what the hell do we have to show for it? I spent the evening putting together part one of the lego toy shop Christmas set. We ordered Thai food, Cameron passed out, and I'm watching bad TV on the internet. And wondering if there is something more. Is there something more than yelling at eight year olds not to pee on each other in the bathroom at school? Where is that magical land where the children behave and average people are good looking? Lake Wobegon does not exist outside of the radio. Are any of my goals met? Not really. Do I workout out anymore? Not really. Do I yell "I'm free" exiting the building with my principal behind me? Absolutely! And that's my life. For the first time in forever/there'll be movies stop singing Frozen. Please stop singing Frozen. No one needs that negativity in their life anymore.

I also got my car detailed for the first time today and it felt amazing. Best use of $40 ever. It felt like a new car and sometimes when you live in the suburbs you need that positivity in your life. I need to make a list of things to do on my break. I really want to visit a sauna, either Gangnam or Jeju. I haven't been in forever and I owe it to myself. Self care is important. I need a massage too but that's a little pricier. I need to clean my closet and do some stuff around the house. But I needed to do that four months ago. Nothing has changed and nothing will change. So goes the cycle of a 30-something woman with mild to moderate clinical depression. It will never be enough. It will never be done, so why bother doing it in the first place. I don't hold this attitude at work. At work I bring 110%. So why is home so different. And that attitude didn't change when I bought a house either.

Nothing is magical. This time of year brings some pains, and I believe it was Kara McGraw who said it best. We shoulder our burdens. We sing all the carols. We fall into old patterns. We dig up old pains. Still we try to preserve it, the perfect illusion in the hope that in the new year we can turn a new page. Sure it's easy to fall into the patterns of believing the new year is going to bring some magical change that will be better than before. But we think that every year, and every year we come up disappointed. McGraw's song captures that, I believe. She captures what it's like to be a white woman around the holidays, with no real faith but the faith she has in people. Her friends. Her family. Herself. She wants the magic of the chandelier to change everything back to the magic of when she was a child, but she's grown now and knows that won't happen. She knows she has to make her own magic happen, but also knows that magic doesn't exist. She knows the responsibility is hers, but also knows that she doesn't want the responsibility for whatever it is she is seeking. We fall into old patterns/We dig up old pains. Wow. Such a powerful half stanza if there ever was one. We want to sing the carols. We want to remember when we sang in the school Christmas pageants against our fathers will. Chorus in fifth grade was fun, and we looked forward it every year and as hard as we try, we can't relive that or get that back. We dig up old pains of loves, heartaches, expectations, and bad decisions. We need to be perfect. It needs to be perfect. We don't know what it is, but it needs to be perfect.


We hope that in the new year/we can turn a new page. We set goals. We put aside bad habits. I will write more. I will drink less. I will eat right. I will go to the gym everyday. But to no avail, in February we shall be back at our old habits again, disappointed in ourselves. McGraw captures that feeling, the feeling of being a white girl with hopes of something bigger, very well. We set the table We drink all the eggnog and we spin all the old songs though the record is frayed. We crowd around Grandpa as he reads the stories, though the grandkids are grown now and are getting engaged. I first heard this song sung by Don Milton III at UUCA after coming home from South Korea in 2012 and it was these two lines that spoke to me the most. Setting the table was always a ritual I never fully understood. I knew I had to do it, but it always seemed overdone, only to be destroyed a half hour later by ravenous diners. My grandparents were in ailing health and eggnog always had a bad reputation, but we drank it anyway. We loved each other as a family, do not get me wrong. But the traditions of setting the table and drinking eggnog always seemed forced as a half Jewish/UU growing up. "We spin all the old songs/though the record is frayed." This line captures the imperfection perfectly. We liked to sing carols, but they don't quite mean the same thing when your parents are looking at you and wanting to ask "Why are you still single what's wrong with you?" with every verse. Everyone around you is doing it.