Honestly Speaking

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” - Anne Lamott

I recently finished reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, and the quotation above is attributed to the book, but it must be a paraphrasing because I can’t seem to find an exact page number. Lamott did post this to Twitter, so I’ll give her credit. If you clicked on this blog in hopes of reading something vengeful or gossipy or juicy about someone who didn’t behave well in my life, then you’ll be disappointed. I may write that story one day, but today I’m going to write about me because I get to be the hero in my story, but I’m probably the villain in someone else’s.

I am in part sharing some of my thoughts on current events in my life, so if you see yourself here - don’t assume, ask.

Christmas is a special holiday to me, but it’s also been a difficult holiday since the last one that my mom experienced before her brain tumor. My family never celebrated Christmas in the same way every year, and I loved the variety. Some years, we would travel - Vietnam, Puerto Rico, Christmas Cruises, etc. Some years we’d have people over for dinner. Some years it would just be our immediate family (Mom, Dad, my brother, and me). Sometimes, we’d join other extended family later in the day. Some years we opened presents at midnight on Christmas eve while watching movies and eating cocktail sausages. Some years we didn’t even make it till midnight. Some years it was wasn’t planned until the last minute like the Christmas Eve that my mom and I went to Kroger at 5 AM to buy all the food to make a Christmas dinner, and then we went to Waffle House for breakfast. Most years, I went shopping with my mom for everyone’s presents, so I always knew what was under the tree. She was notoriously hard to shop for, and she was always more about giving without expectation of an equal return. She knew all of us well enough that she didn’t need a list to tell her what gifts would make us light up. What I love most about my family Christmas is there were no expectations, no formal traditions, no rules. Our traditions were casual - dinner, gifts, time together.

This kind of spontaneity may drive some people crazy. Some would call it chaos, but for me it’s always been peace. Peace because we weren’t needing to impress anyone. Peace because we could just be ourselves. Peace because there wasn’t the mad rush to cook, clean, or entertain company. I’ve experienced Christmases with others that felt overly structured and stressful. Christmases with such rigid expectations that some of the joy of the season was lost for me. I enjoyed those Christmases too, because I was celebrating with people I love, but every once in a while, I would like to have Christmas with just my immediate family, which right now is just me and my husband, but one day our children - not because I want to isolate or exclude anyone, but I need the peace of a Christmas without being expected to travel, host a big meal, or entertain company. A Christmas to just be.

I recently expressed this need, and I was met with unkind, undeserved, and thoughtless commentary about my intentions, my character, my culture. Some of the commentary came from a place of hurt and anger over an incorrect assumption. While I know people often say things they don’t mean when they are are angry/hurt, I also believe that when people speak out of anger, they are honestly speaking and revealing some level of truth about who they are. Similarly, the way I respond to this commentary will reveal who I am.

Who I am is my mother’s daughter. I was raised to be independent, to self-manage, and with the freedom to be authentically myself. I have her stubborn persistence, her leadership skills, and sometimes her short-temper, which is why we often had passionate discussions and disagreements. I have her strength, her will-power, and her security in her own identity. When I was younger and trying to figure out who I was, Mom would tell me “I know who you are better than you.” I never understood it then, but now I know, I am her competent, strong-willed, and fierce reflection.