-No Wrapping Required

It has been almost two months since Christmas, and I still have not used all my gift cards. Although it seems like it was just last week when we were all scrambling to make last minute purchases, planning what to wear to which party and placing bows on boxes; time has taken away the holiday spirit and left winter blues in its place. Now is the time of year when the seasons are stuck in between each other, the sun comes out but multiple layers are still required to protect from the temperatures. The snow falls might have tapered off, but the grey colored skies have remained. That is one of the nice things about the holiday season; the world is full of color and sparkle. The shining lights and bright baubles seem foolish and annoying during the actual time but their glow and incandescence are sorely missed when life begins to look like a black and white talkie. I hardly even knew it was Christmas this past year. It felt like I went to bed after consuming mass amounts of turkey and stuffing and then woke up in my parents house sitting on the couch sipping coffee and opening presents. There are vague memories of studying for exams and blurred images of working retail during the holidays, but mostly it feels like it was gone and forgotten before I got a chance to remember it. That seems to be a repeating theme as you grow up; things ending before you get to enjoy them. Now with it being the end of February, and no real holiday in sight, it is hard to accept that another Christmas has come and gone. It is especially hard because I am just now figuring out the perfect gift for everyone.
Then again, maybe it does not need to be a holiday to give gifts. Who says that gift giving can only happen on days centered around trees and dropping disco balls? Or a fake holiday that involves flying babies that shoot people with arrows. Not every gift needs to be wrapped in colored paper and sealed; sometimes the greatest gift we can get is not even able to be put in a box. There are certain things in life that you can receive, that do not involve gift receipts or assembly, which will outweigh a lifetimes worth of material goods. Things like friendship, trust, reliability and love; these are gifts that can be given all year round and valued any day. Of course I am not one to oppose Best Buy gift cards, new pairs of denim and name brand cheesecake, but those will only last you so long. Except Starbucks gift cards, which are the real way to tell someone you love them. A drink with a green straw is hard to beat. But still, the finest things in life require no currency. Friendship, community and intimacy are things that we decide to give to people all the time, in hopes that it will be received well and reciprocated, without the safety of thirty day return policy. When it comes to things that are not returnable, is it really better to give then to receive?
I think we have all heard, or lived through, enough ugly Christmas sweater stories to last us a lifetime, but that can also be said of heartache and broken trust. If you get stuck with a crap sweater you can always just re-gift it or goodwill it, but that can’t be said of relationships. This is why we should all remember how important it is to have the gift of real friends and true relationships. Because no matter how perfect that new denim fits, a genuine hug will always fit better. No matter how many songs the Best Buy card gets you it is nothing compared to singing in the car with your friends. And even though an iced, venti Americano is sweet, the trust and love of someone is so much sweeter. So remember to value those you have around you and to give gifts that will be remembered long after the green straw is gone. Not all memorable gifts require wrapping.

-Working Full Time, Living Part Time

The older I get the more I value free time. Which is never really free time; it is more of a conscious decision on my part to push back obligations, delay deadlines and free up my schedule to do exactly what I want to do. Even when this does happen my brain, on some level, is creating a timetable of due dates for all the work I will have to make up and all the work that will inevitably be piled on top. So even when I am working to have a good time, I am still working to plan out all the work that needs to get done and factoring in all the work that is going to be given, all while trying to remember that all work and no play makes life not worth living. What exactly are we working for again? Besides working for the weekend, it is sometimes difficult to remember why exactly we keep putting our noses to the grindstone. Is anyone else worried they are running out of nose? We have to work in our classes to make sure we get decent grades; part of having decent grades is doing homework. We have to work to make sure we somehow find enough time to not only go to classes but study for them and work for them outside of class. It sometimes feels like we are working just to achieve more work. Not to mention all the obligations we have outside of schoolwork. Trying to find time to workout and stay fit; working to look good. Making sure we get enough hours at work so we can pay bills and bar tabs; working for the man. Trying to work in enough time to see, maintain and catch up with friends; working for community. Finding time to get all the needed housework done; working for domesticity. We also have to work towards our goals, dreams and ambitions; working for sanity. Not to mention working on our romantic lives, social lives and daily lives; working for kisses and social networking. It takes more then working nine to five just to try and make a living.
I am not opposed to hard work, but I am beginning to think we are working too hard on too many things. We work through college so that we can find and get into jobs we won’t mind working for the rest of our lives. Upon entering our jobs we are given work to do, and upon completion of said work we will be rewarded with more work. While in our occupational field we will have to work to stay friendly with our bosses, work to be polite to our colleagues, work to make sure the client is pleased and work to make sure we can keep on working. Just because we are getting paid for forty hours a week doesn’t mean we aren’t working more hours then that. Something tells me that OSHA wouldn’t have much to say if I called to complain about these types of working conditions. Pretty much we are working full time right now, so that we can work full time forever.
The seven dwarfs might have been able to whistle during it to make themselves feel better but I’m going to need more then a few repetitive notes to get me through my day. Work will always be there, in all kinds of shapes and forms and different kinds of stress, but when we have to work to remember how to have fun it has gone too far. Plus we aren’t just working for ourselves; this is not one long solo mission. Often times we are working for our friends our families and our lovers. We have to work to make sure they know who we are, what we are about and what we a working towards. Doing so much work changes a person quickly and often, so unless we want to end up working by ourselves we have to work to stay in touch. There is no way any of us would be able to work through our mountains of work and obligations unless we have people we love standing beside us. So sure, all work and no play can make life not worth living; but making sure you have people to work beside you and play with is work worth doing.

-Loving Memories

It’s always fun to try and think of your earliest memory. Sometimes it involves Christmas presents and family gatherings. Other times it can be the first day at preschool or daycare. Maybe it is the day your parents brought home that annoying bundle of noise that would steal the attention and keep you awake at night. It could be something smaller, like walking up the front porch steps of your Grandmothers house or the jar of candied oranges she would keep in her kitchen. It is odd to think that we could have memories of things that occurred before we even knew how to spell our own names. It is even stranger to think that we have trouble remembering all the homework assignments and due dates we have despite the fact they were assigned two days ago. How we could remember the license plate numbers of the rented car used while vacationing in Florida eight years ago, and somehow forget the due date of this month’s gas bill, is beyond me. Memories are both beneficial and detrimental. Beneficial memories can be both pleasant and bad to recall because not everything we did was worth it, but it is important to remember what we survived. Detrimental memories, the kind of memories that hurt us, are of things we will never have again.
Before I even reached twenty I was convinced I had found the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with, and in one breath it was all taken away from me. Now I know that this could be easily written off as puppy love or mere infatuation, and there is no point in my trying to convince or persuade you otherwise so I won’t try. Something that is undeniable are the leftover memories that come uninvited into your brain and heart after losing someone you love. Not only are they the worse kind because they cause you pain, but they are tricky, rotten little things due to their random timing. You might think you are having an average day, fully convinced it will resemble most of the others that have passed, when suddenly it will hit you. It might be caused by the first few notes of a song, a familiar scent in the air, a reference to a certain book; any one of those things and a million others can bring about a memory you had no desire to think about. Suddenly your mind resembles a dead leaf in November being carried away by the wind. You can chase after it trying to stop it or trying to catch it but it is futile; the memory has taken your mind and disappeared with it. If you’re lucky you’ll have great friends and good family who will help you by giving you new memories, and with time the November winds will blow less often. With so much potential for pain and reoccurring heartache, are memories worth remembering?
Sometimes I feel like the memories are keeping me from actually knowing the real events or the real people of my past. It is not that hard to try and shift previous events into looking better then they were, sometimes we end up loving memories just because it is easier on us. It might be a defense mechanism, making things appear better so that when they do come back to us it isn’t so painful. If that is the case though, that means we forget the truth more and more every time we remember it. I couldn’t tell you the real reason for why we change memories or choose to remember some things and not others, but what I can tell you is that I am happy for what I do remember. I had a short time with my Grandmother, but I still have the candied oranges. Christmas is not what it used to be, but I remember what it was. I may not have now what I once did, but I will always have the memories. If there was a way to “eternal sunshine” my brain away I wouldn’t do it. I want to remember as much as I can because I’ll always be loving my memories.

The Missing Pieces

I have this theory, about how we leave tiny pieces of ourselves all over the place. Try as we might, sometimes we just can not seem to keep it together. Sometimes we break apart, or get chipped. A piece of us gets left where we had our fist kiss, where we had our first date, and even in the drivers seat of our first car. A bit of us gets chipped off the first time we lose someone, the first time our passion gets stomped out and every time we realize there is no stopping growing up. Sometimes we get ran across a hard surface and bits of us get shaved off. If we only lost little pieces we would probably be able to get by, but we don’t lose only small pieces. Every once in awhile we take a hit so hard that it feels like a hole has been punched right through us, leaving an odd shaped gap where a piece of us use to be before. Most of the time it is easy to ignore, easy to not pay attention to the tiny holes that run through us. We can go about our lives doing what we need to get done, forgetting that we are not complete. Then, when you least expect it, a bitter wind comes and blows right through us. That is when you realize just how many pieces you are missing. Physically you can be in one place at one time trying to do what has been placed in front of you, the task at hand, but how could you possibly focus when you are scattered all over the place.
When I was younger I was taught that the best way to get a puzzle done was to start with the corners and border pieces and work your way towards the center. Start on the outside and work your way in. It usually works too. You can find the corners easily because they are pointy and hard and stick out from the other pieces. You can find the hard edges first. Then try to find the pieces with flat sides, the ones that support and connect the corners. They help build the frame, the skeleton for everything else to be placed on and supported by. These are a little harder to find and notice. When you do get all the corners and the outside pieces you begin to see what you are truly looking at. A rough estimate can be made about how the end result will look. Usually you can cheat and look at the box to see what you are working towards. Box or no box, once you have the frame you start putting the middle together, which is like the heart of the puzzle. This is the hardest part, a lot of the pieces look similar and the colors blur together and it can be hard to find what fits where. The image on the box can only help so much, when it comes down to it you are on your own. Even when you have all the pieces you need it can be complicated, but when pieces are missing it can be a disaster.
We don’t always get to choose what pieces we are missing, and even if we did it would still be a hard decision to make. Should we lose a corner and soften our edges? Do you try to eliminate some support? What happens if you try to keep it together without all the pieces of the heart? So if we need all of our pieces, and we keep losing them, how are we suppose to keep it together?
We are told that point is to try and have as many pieces as possible, and yet somehow still maintain the original image that was on the box. But what if losing pieces is not only a bad thing? Maybe it is a trail, like breadcrumbs leading to the heart of who we are. If someone is willing to not only follow the pieces we have left behind, or at the very least understand why they are missing, maybe that makes them worth being around. Through one fashion or another we are all missing pieces, our lives are scattered through our pasts and leave a trail leading right up to our present; the question is how do you keep it together if you are missing pieces? In my opinion, you forget about the image on the box and build the best way you know how with the pieces you still have.