AnnieModify

My Mom loved the holidays. She always tried to do too much, and would get a little frazzled and stressed, but she did it because she loved all of it.

A typical holiday season in my childhood would include a lot of family gatherings and cooking and holiday events. There would be a few special church services. My sister and I would be in the choir and maybe doing a duet or something too. I’ve sung Mary Did You Know? more times than I want to admit and I am happy to never have to listen to or sing that song again, thanks. 

We’d also go caroling, something my own children have never done. It’s a wild tradition when you think about it. You show up at strangers’ homes and… sing at them. They stand awkwardly in the doorway, forced to listen to a few rounds of Gloooooo-ooooo-ooooo-rias before you yell Merry Christmas and release them to the blessed peace of their own home. Mostly, we’d go to the homes of people we knew but I can’t decide if that’s better or worse. I mean, imagine going to the home of one of your friends and standing on their porch singing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen while they stand there looking so uncomfortable. Strangers might be better. 

I just described this caroling tradition to my oldest two kids, who are sitting at the table crocheting, playing with Play-Doh, and watching Instagram Reels. They agree: Absolutely unhinged move. Showing up at someone’s house, stranger or friend, to stand on their doorstep and sing a traditional holiday anthem at them.  

Today our Christmas festivities didn’t start until mid-morning. The kids are all teenagers now; they sleep late no matter how exciting the day is. We opened presents and then put out our spread of Christmas brunch and goodies. We’ve spent the day watching movies, gaming, reading, relaxing. I went for a very short, very slow run in which I discovered that eating your body weight in cheese and pie is, shockingly, not good prep for a run. You live, you learn. 

Now I’m sitting on the couch with a glass of wine and my laptop.

Child #2 took a plate of pumpkin pie to his room. Child #1 is texting her boyfriend. Child #3 and Child #4 are gaming, with periodic commentary that drifts down the hall so we all know how it’s going.

There’s a pile of blankets on the floor and a cat curled up on them. A stack of books on the cabinet under the tv. Plenty of food in the kitchen. Warmth and love all around me.

Traditions change, but the important things stay the same.

Joyful, joyful. 

Connection between people requires time and care and a bit of vulnerability. 

Typical social media is frenetic and shallow by design. It’s a firehose of urgency that encourages consumption over connection, and now it’s so algorithmed and hyperbolic that I find it mostly useless.

I enjoy dipping into Micro.blog and Mastodon, and I’ve gotten to meet and interact with people I wouldn’t have encountered otherwise.

But I think we’re putting an undue amount of pressure on the fediverse to provide community for us. No platform can build or provide community. People are the only ones who can build community, and we do it by nurturing individual connections with each other.

We can use the fediverse as a tool for this, just like we can use our own blogs, and email, messaging, phone conversations, video calls, streaming interactions, and in-person visits. Time spent together concurrently or asynchronously. Care offered via digital or physical expression. 

We have more tools and methods for connecting with other humans than we have ever had before. 

Social networks are a place of potential connections. But we have to do the work ourselves to move a connection from potential to actual. 

The kitchen doesn’t make the meal: the kitchen holds the ingredients and tools, and I can use those things to make a meal. Or I can stand there and be upset that my presence in the kitchen hasn’t been enough to produce the meal I’m craving.

This time of year can be quite the stressor. I love the holidays, in general, and I treasure the traditions I have with my kids and friends and loved ones. But the extra stuff that comes along with the holidays, the activities and travel and gift-giving, adds up to a significant financial chunk. I’m not financially comfortable enough to just roll with those extra expenses. I have to juggle things. I don’t like it. It stresses me out. 

So I was contemplating this a bit last night, feeling mellow, sipping a glass of cheap merlot, half-watching the last episode of Alone season 7, checking the status of a few deliveries, and wishing I could enjoy the season without feeling so stretched financially. Remembering how last year I wished the same, and here I am a year later, and it doesn’t feel like much has changed. Have I made any progress? Day-to-day it doesn’t really seem that way. The monthly budget, if anything, is tighter: this year my rent went up by a whopping 40% and I added another teenage driver to my car insurance. Ouch.

I started feeling pretty damn bad about it all, and hopeless.

The Alone episode ended and our photo screen saver came on as I shuffled around straightening couch pillows and folding  blankets and gathering up  17 half-drunk cans of sparkling water and so on. A photo caught my attention: The kids in 2017, on the beach.

2017:

The year I and my ex-husband lost our jobs. At the same time. Because we both worked for the same start-up. And it turned out to be less of a start-up and more of a fraud. (Wait is that actually the same thing…?) We already hadn’t been paid for over 6 months. We’d drained our savings just to keep going until the next investment round. I know, I know. It was monumentally stupid. 

The first time in my adult life I couldn’t pay my bills.

The year we had over $30,000 in unsecured debt. 

The year we had to leave our lovely home and move across town to an apartment we could still barely afford.

The year we found out I needed major surgery, and we had no health insurance. 

The year our car was repossessed. 

The year we couldn’t afford Christmas presents at all. 

I loaded my wine glass in the dishwasher, stuck the leftovers in the refrigerator, set up the coffee for the next morning, and wiped the counters. And looked around at our comfortable, safe home. It’s small. We get in each other’s way; sometimes we all want a little more elbow room. But it is cheerful and cozy and so peaceful.

My car crossed 200,000 miles last month. But it’s paid for. I own it, outright. And I like it. It’s in good shape. I maintain it religiously and get repairs as needed. At some point I’ll need to upgrade, but for now Aloysius is doing good.

I don’t have any unsecured debt. I don’t have any debt at all. Some of it I paid off. Some of it was cleared from my record at the 7-year mark. 

I have a small savings account. It builds and diminishes and builds again. Bit by bit. My credit score is good again. That took a lot of work. When it crossed from fair back into good this year I was so proud of myself.

I’ve also spent a good deal of time thinking about why having a bad credit score made me feel so deeply ashamed.

Interesting.

Interesting that the primary emotion I have felt about money, for so long, is shame. There’s some deep-rooted bullshit I need to uproot and burn. 

In 2017, I was at the lowest financial point I’d ever experienced. It was terrifying. We inched forward the best we could. By 2020, I’d rebuilt my freelance business enough to support our family, comfortably. Then the pandemic hit. Within a few months I’d lost half my clients. By the end of the year, I’d also lost my husband.

2021 dawned, bright and fresh: I was once again broke, and this time I was also alone. I turned 40 that year, just another discarded menopausal woman staring wide-eyed at a future that had become suddenly, irrevocably bleak. 

This is the part where I need to wrap up with some sort of bow tied on top, or whatever. 

Already this retrospective is much longer than I anticipated. In my head, I wanted to make a short little comparison: In 2017, I was here. In 2024, I am here. I have made progress, et voilà!

As per usual, I start writing and other things sneak in. Like it or not, money is more than just money. It’s tied into how we live. Having money doesn’t solve all your problems, as someone said, but it does solve your money problems. A high percentage of my problems are money problems. Or at least, money-adjacent problems. 

Money is complicated by our relationships. Or perhaps our relationships are complicated by money. Relationships end over money. Some of my relatives haven’t spoken to each other in years because of money. Wild! That’s wild. Imagine being so angry at someone you love because of money. Who cares? 

Oh wait, I care. I care about money. Because I need money. I have to have money to live. Money money money. It’s so boring. It’s so fucking boring. 

My idea of financial freedom is to have enough money that I don’t need to think about money. Let me buy groceries without keeping a mental tally of the cost. Let me pay alllllll the bills without double-checking my account balance. Let me put money in savings and not have to take it out three months later. Let me have healthcare without incurring ridiculous amounts of debt.

Good god, what a joke our economic system is. We could have invented so many other things, and we came up with the stock market. What an abject failure of humanity. All the systems and structures in place for money are entirely made up. We could have done this different. 

Money has power, which is unfortunate. In more stark terms, money is power. It’s used as a measure, as a silencer, as a force. This is reprehensible and clearly wrong. How do we change it?

Last night, I watched a show in which 10 people compete for a big money prize. I like this show. The people competing seem to love what they’re doing. They’re skilled and respectful and interesting. They seem genuinely excited to be out there. Many of them talk about how glad they are to have a chance to be alone in the woods; it’s something they’ve wanted to do for a long time. It’s fascinating to watch them find food and explore and build shelters and do all the things you have to do to live in the wilderness.

But there’s a point in this show when things get… Sad. Enough time goes by. Food gets scarce. Weather gets bad. One by one, the contestants start dropping out. The ones who remain aren’t excited anymore. They’re suffering.

Last night I watched three people who had lived in the Arctic wilderness for three months talk about what winning money would mean. They all said the same thing everybody on this show says: I could help the people I love and I could spend more time with the people I love.

Tremendous. Heart-breaking. Three amazingly skilled, disciplined, adaptable, hard-working, immensely capable adults with healthy bodies and intelligent minds were literally starving themselves in sub-zero temperatures for the chance to get enough money to help and spend time with the people they love.

Money is not power. Love is power.

Somehow we have screwed the whole thing up. Our very civilization is built backwards. We trade our hours for dollars because we have to. We long for the security that money brings, but to get it we must sacrifice what’s worth securing: our health, our relationships, our creativity. 

Money is not power. Money is not security. Money is not freedom. Money is a means of exchange, a transactional tool. It is a means, not an end. It should serve us, not enslave us. 

We could have done this different. Maybe we still can. 

You start pretending to have fun, and you might even have a little by accident.

– Alfred Pennyworth

Reading Lou’s recent post on delight got me thinking. There’s a phrase I started repeating to myself at a time when literally everything had been falling apart for a while and was continuing to fall apart in new and even worse ways:

I am continually delighted by that which is before me.

There were many not-delightful things going on, at the time. I was basically lying to myself. Over and over. (Which is kinda what affirmations are, I guess?)

Delighted!

Delight is an interesting concept. It implies an intensity of joy. To be delighted is to let yourself surrender. To let down your guard and be immersed in pleasure, surprised by goodness. 

You can’t be surprised when you can predict everything. You can’t be delighted when you never let down your guard.

Control is all about predicting and protecting.

I think, probably, the amount of delight we experience is directly related to the amount of control we’re willing to not have.

Shitballs!

Funny thing about trying to have control is it’s usually a futile exercise.

If you can control something, then do it: Take action. Make a change.

If you can’t control something, then trying to is a frustrating waste of energy.

You can spend a lot of time trying to get people to meet your expectations. Trying to eliminate unpleasant experiences. Trying to protect yourself from conflict or disappointment. 

Usually, those efforts to control what you can’t rightly control don’t work. You don’t get rid of the bad stuff. But you often do eliminate a lot of chances for the good stuff (the delightful, surprised-by-joy goodness).

I don’t know—here’s an idea—maybe let’s try going for delight instead?

It’s scary, of course.

Super fucking scary! 

The idea of control is so appealing. I love the idea of predicting life well enough to protect myself from pain. Too bad it doesn’t work!

Let’s try the other way. Dance to new music and see what opens up.

What’s the worst that can happen? We’ll get what we don’t want? Well, that happens anyway, doesn’t it?

Maybe we’ll stir things up a bit. Maybe we’ll create new expectations and send our attention in a different direction and find new and better ideas than we’ve had before. Who knows?

Make a trade!

Whatever you expect, you’re usually right.

Control is expecting to be disappointed and hurt.

Delight is expecting to be surprised by goodness.

Control is an ugly muddy shitball.

Delight is a perfect shiny marble.

Which one do you want to carry in your pocket?

Train yourself to expect obstacles: To embrace them is asking a bit much, to merely accept them when they appear is not quite enough. 

This world throws all kinds of obstacles at us; we are forced to endure so much that is absurd. Our best weapon for fighting all the pain and trouble in the world isn’t logic or violence. It’s humor.

—Sosuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

The only way to avoid obstacles is to have no aim, to simply go wherever you are pushed.

You know people like this. They are passive. Often, they are also unhappy and resentful.  We can pity them, but we should not become them.

The world is full of obstacles. We spend too much time avoiding them. Challenges make us alive. Challenges open our eyes to what we can handle.

When you set your sights on something, you’re going to have to deal with whatever is between you and your goal.

It’s not about the universe being against you, or your bad luck.

It has nothing to do with you, in fact.

It’s simply that where you are is not the same as where you’re aiming to be, and there is stuff in between Point A and Point B. To get to Point B, you’re going to have to strike out and encounter that stuff. Deal with it.

You can take it personally, get offended, feel cheated, feel victimized, and give up. Retreat back to Point A. Decide it’s too much work. Reason that ‘if it was meant to be’ you wouldn’t have encountered all those obstacles.

But that’s a load of crap.

Obstacles don’t exist to stop you from reaching your goal. They exist because the world exists. Because there is stuff in the world. Because between you (today) and you (tomorrow) are 24 hours of anything-can-happen.

Practice builds skill. Over time, persistence becomes consistency. Engaging (practicing) and keeping at it (being persistent) is how you get around obstacles.

Humor helps, too. For sure. Sometimes the main skill you get to practice is the skill of laughing at yourself. 

Getting past obstacles feels really good, even if you still have a ways to go before you reach your target destination. Overcoming an obstacle takes work. It’s an achievement, which builds confidence and helps restart your momentum so you can keep going. 

Dealing with obstacles gives you practice, persistence, and the ability to achieve in small ways as you move forward. Viewed this way, obstacles are less of a hindrance than you might think. Every time you face one, and figure out how to overcome it, you gain something.

If you can’t figure out how to overcome it, you’ve learned something different: That it’s time for a change. For help, or a different approach, or a new path. 

Don’t be surprised by obstacles. Anticipate them. Look forward to them as things that you absolutely will encounter. Not if, when. See them, learn from them, and deal with them, one at a time. 

• The only way to avoid obstacles is to be aimless.

• Obstacles aren’t there to stop you or warn you or work against you, personally.

• Obstacles can serve you. They help you develop your skills, build consistency in effort, and earn real confidence.

• Ignoring the obstacles is pretending they don’t exist and won’t affect you. Don’t do that. It’s a delaying tactic. Dealing with the obstacles is the way to go forward. Do that.

It is very difficult to undertake any dynamic action unless there is resident in the person a boldness that refuses to be intimidated by obstacles. 

—U.S. Andersen

It’s really easy for me to get distracted by others. Distracted from myself. 

That has often turned into unhealthy patterns in my relationships, old traps and patterns, codependence: abandoning myself, and then feeling that my safety or wholeness is in someone else.

I put out feelers for the emotions that others might feel and then respond in urgency, as if my purpose for existence is to calm, manage the emotional responses of those around me.

What about letting myself feel, instead?

Nope, no room for that when I am busy managing (calming, soothing, noticing, responding to, reacting to) the emotions of others. No time for my own feelings. No space for them. No energy for them, to know them or acknowledge them or express them.

This is my way of distracting myself from myself.

Why would I do that?

Why not let myself feel?

Because feelings bring in unpleasantries. My feelings may not line up with how I want to be. My feelings seem chaotic and I want to be calm. My feelings make me vulnerable and I want to be in control. My feelings are childish and I want to be mature. My feelings are unpredictable and I want to know. My feelings don’t give a flying fuck about goals, plans, opinions, consensus, and I want to achieve, be cool, be approved.

So it’s easier to focus on other people’s feelings and try to get them to chill the fuck out because, YO, feelings are inconvenient. Let’s chill and be cool and be calm and not have those messy things flying around. They are all over the place.

Except it doesn’t work. Not acknowledging or expressing my feelings does not mean I don’t have them. (Duh.)

I could busy myself creating an emotional buffer zone for those around me or I could trust them to have their own emotions and let myself have mine.

Weird concept. But it does seem simpler than trying to manage feelings which don’t even belong to me. How do I know what the feelings are? What am I, the Feelings Guru? And what makes me think I need to manage them, fix them, smooth them? Why do I think feelings are dangerous?

What if I released the management of how others feel (a secure position; I get to be calm, I get to be in control and detached, I get to feel superior) and—instead—let myself feel?