Friday List: Blessing Addition

Two years ago, I got on Facebook. It was a big step for me because I'd not been very social, even on a cyberspace basis, for a long time. When you first get on a social media thingymabob, you often find yourself at a loss with what to write.  I, fortunately, was in good headspace at that point, and decided I would not fill the Wall of others with angst and other stuff I should have been past by like 12.

 I decided I would do a Thankful Thursday post every week. Just type out one or two things I was grateful to have in my life.  I have to say, it's been good for me.  Talking about the places where you are blessed in your life gives you a nice re-centering. I think I've talked about that before.

I forgot to do my Thankful Thursday this week.  My mind was elsewhere because I wasn't at home and because of the stuff I blogged about on Wednesday. So for this list, I decided to blog about my blessings, the big ones I am so, so thankful to have.

1. As an adult, I have never been in a relationship that was physically violent.
   
   When I was a child, this was a different matter.  But as an adult, I've been very lucky to have avoided the people who feel it is their duty to abuse others.  Some people might say that being a fat girl who is rather mentally unstable might have something to do with that, but if I had been in an abusive relationship, they'd say being a fat girl who is mentally unstable was the reason for that as well. There's never any winning with that crap.
   
2. I share my life with someone I trust.
   
   My roommate and I were talking tonight about how so many people have to deal with others who will rifle through their belongings, read their emails, creep through their texts and files. I don't have to worry about that with him. He can use my computer all day and I know he'd never dig through my personal files.  He won't go through my purse and I never have to worry about finding him in my room looking for stuff to use against me.  I jokingly tell him it's because he knows he'd be freaked out by what he would find, but that isn't really the case. He respects my privacy.  Trust me, if the people around you don't respect your privacy, you need to get away from them.  They don't respect you.
   
3. I have a good therapist.
   
   A lot of people have to go through HELL to find a good therapist.  Bad therapists tend to either be lazy, useless, crazy, working some agenda, or dogmatic.  Mine is none of these things.   She is diligent in her work, she's sane, neutral, and works with me on ways to address my issues. Finding mental stability is like trying to carve up a glacier. There is the jagged part sticking out of the water that you have to bang out waaaay before you hit all the massive stuff under the surface.  She has been instrumental in helping me find my way into the murkier depths.
   
4. I know I am loved.
   
   For many years, I wasn't sure of this.  I felt like most people were just going through the motions of loving me . . . or in some cases, not even bothering to do that.  My life is so different now.  I know I am loved.  I have a nephew who, after being told I was coming over, spent the whole day drawing pictures for me and taping them to his living room wall so I could see them when I came over.  I have extended family who drove from Colorado to come get me just so I could spend Thanksgiving with them.  I have best friends I get to talk to every day.  I am not just loved, I am very loved.
   
5. I have rediscovered my Voice.
   
   Of course, I don't mean my speaking voice. I never lost that.  I did lose my writing voice though.  When I was younger, I wrote all the time. During the worst of my mental and emotional decline, I stopped writing. I lost my Voice and began to think it was gone for good.  I've been blogging over two months now. My Voice has returned and I'm so, so thankful for that. I had not realized how much I missed it.

It was a rough winter, a rough start to this year, but in all the craptasticness that has happened, I can't help but be happy right now.  I'm writing again and I really needed to be writing.

Even if it is a blog only two people read. Hi, guys! *waves*

The Great Curse of the Christmas Socks

Several years ago, my grandmother (a famously bad gift giver) got my brother, sister-in-law, and me big packages of the world's ugliest and most ill-fitting white socks for Christmas. All three of us sat there in perplexed horror as we pretended to be very happy with the gift. When she left the room, my brother looked at me and asked, in a voice filled with anguish and annoyance, "What are we going to do with these godawful socks?"

Normally, this question would have garnished basic sarcasm from me.  But on this fateful day, I was inspired by the ages and said, "We wrap them up in a big, happy box and give them to Dad."

Christmas is always one of the trade offs on the divorced parent thing.  Aside from just the fact that, in theory, you get more gifts, there is also the fact that if one event sucks, the other one might not be so bad.  There is also the fact that you can regift on a very fast basis.  This was one of those cases.

We wrapped up the offending fugly socks and drove over to my grandfather's house.  All the way there, we would find ourselves snickering in anticipation of the moment when Dad opened the socks.  At one point, I think my brother was laughing so hard, he had to pull the car over for a few minutes.

The moment didn't disappoint either.  When Dad opened the socks, the look of dismay and confusion was everything we thought it would be. Through giggles, we explained to him how he'd come to gain possession of his new socks. He laughed with us and we laughed all the way home, even calling our mother to tell her what we did.

The gift of the socks didn't end there. The next year, my dad managed to sneak them back to my brother.  A while later, my brother got them back to him.  In the years that followed, the socks have been returned over and over again, sometimes for Christmas, sometimes for birthdays. Last year, my sister-in-law got my step-mom a purse for her Christmas, fully packed with the socks inside of it.

You know, I hear a lot of people talk about how the destruction of the traditional family has ruined the rituals and histories that tie people together.  I know in some cases that is possibly true, but not always. My brother and I aren't as close to my dad as many other people are to theirs, but we do have this Sock Gift thing going with him. And it wasn't one of those fake, "let's make something to let us all be a family" things.  This was spontaneous and meant as a joke. Somehow though, it became something more.  And while we probably would never sit around and talk about it, it's important to us.

I think maybe the really beautiful thing about this, if there is a beautiful part to it, is how no one wanted these stupid socks.  We pass them around to each other like a hot potato, acting like they really are the worst things in the world.  Yet somehow, we love these socks now, because they are a part of how we interact as a family.

This year for Christmas, I got a mattress topper. You know, one of those thick, cushy, wonderful things that makes even the most evilly uncomfortable bed a reasonable place to sleep. Like any good procrastinator, I didn't actually put it on my bed until just today. As I was unzipping the package it came in, I realized I had no idea where the socks had ended up. I paused and looked at the bag, realizing it would be the perfect place to hide them.  I smiles a little to myself, thinking about all the ways I could return them to the rest of the family.

When I flipped the topper out, however, there were no socks to be seen.  I had been spared the sock curse. I was happy about that . . . but maybe just a little disappointed.