STONE COLD HAVEN

Why oh why do we stress ourselves and bust a gut to try and start new things a fresh coz’ the calendar says January 1st.

The only new year’s resolution I’ve managed to honour religiously was to stop smoking 5 years ago. A lot of people ask me how I managed and what motivated me to stop inhaling the ‘ol coffin nail. It had nothing to do with my health or the fact that it was anti-social. It was just bloody expensive to be a smoker in the UK.

Come to think of it, not smoking at least 20 fags a day for the last 5 years has saved me at least £9,500. Now that is something I can be proud of….Don’t ask me what I did with the money though – I’m hoping it was something less expensive than smoking. WOW! It’s been 5 years – and to think of those dreaded days and nights suffering withdrawal from my mad decision of quitting cold turkey – now that was stupid – but it worked. I don’t want to ever feel like that ever again.

I’m going to try an “I’ll quit smoking” type of resolution as of tomorrow. And No! I’m not giving up sex.

Every now and then, events serve to remind us how uncomfortable it is for your “soft underbelly” to be exposed. This exposure manifests itself in different ways and appears under different guises. What doesn’t change is a timely reminder of the vulnerabilities that we have in dealing with certain issues.

Over the last few days, I’ve had intense periods of thinking about my soft underbelly and how vulnerable I am with some issues. I think of vulnerability here as an inability to immediately deal with the intense emotions and pressure that comes with the fear of not working well with certain situations. A good friend of mine, who’s opinion I value a lot recently put this across so eloquently by describing it as a feeling of being out there naked and exposed.

In most, if not all of these situations, it helps tremendously when you work with and contemplate such vulnerabilities in a safe environment and space. The kind of safe space that would make you comfortable to accept that it is OK and natural to feel naked and exposed while you try and work through your different challenges from time to time. Finding this safe space can be very difficult though – I should know, I’m good at creating those environments for other people to comfortably share their hopes and fears, dreams and tribulations.

The thing is, I’m really bad at it when it comes to issues that affect me. I have become skilful in creating a proverbial wall around me supposedly to protect myself from the mental emotion and turmoil of facing and working with certain situations. Through my adult life, creating this wall has been a default instinct for me, especially when I don’t understand enough, how the situation will affect me. There have been several painful experiences that have led me to finding a default safe space for myself, and maybe it’s because I understand the experience of being out there naked and exposed, , it makes it easier for me to work very well with other people in a safe space, but not myself.

I’ve been thinking about how it feels like being supported by someone else to deal with your vulnerabilities. Getting to know and trust such a person is very difficult, but it is also true that they’re out there, and more importantly, it’s OK to trust in them as others trust in you. It’s OK to know that if you fell backwards, that person will be there to hold you to stop the fall and help you work through those emotions. It’s OK to accept that building walls around you doesn’t necessarily protect you from the very bad things out there, it just stops you from dealing with them.

I want to get better at dealing with certain situations, especially where being timely makes a significant difference. My timely actually is usually clouded by the masonry I employ in building my wall, and it’s easy enough to forget how important it is to work with certain situations while they’re still fresh, or how important it is to recognize, thank and appreciate those who can help you create that safe space for you, and also how it is important to learn to trust them to do that.

A new year presents a new opportunity for me to be more trusting, especially to those who have trusted me in return.

I’ve always wondered why it took me so long to get blogging, and concluded that perhaps it’s just a character trait of mine that can sometimes make me my own worst enemy. I like writing as a way of expressing myself because it’s easier to logically organize my thoughts. I’ve recently been feeling a bit overwhelmed on several fronts – and what makes it a bit tedious is that it’s not one thing that I can grab by the scruff of the neck and sort out immediately, it’s more like loads of little things that have accumulated over time and have become the proverbial death of a thousand paper cuts.

So I decided to finally start blogging and where better to start than the madness that is Christmas. You know, I sometimes think the entire human collective in the western world has lost the plot on this one. Where I grew up, Christmas had something to do with the birth of Jesus and the celebration of that. As with most western countries, folks in the UK seem to have a dangerously misguided notion of what this day is all about.

You see it everywhere – from the constant advertisements and commercials on radio and TV about drinking and driving safely (talk about an oxymoron), health warnings about having safe sex, and in your face discounts and price reductions in any number of stores around town. The only mention of Jesus is perhaps from different shades of nativity plays folks endure their kids to – just for good measure. At one community church I know, last year they walked in a donkey and let the kids pat it and play with it – and that was the nativity play.

There’s also a certain level of disturbing madness about the need for gifts and presents. See, I don’t understand the logic of getting traumatized coz’ you’re broke, and doing stupid things like committing yourself to serious debt with loan sharks offering 1000% interest loans, so that you can get toys and stuff for the kids, socks for granddad, and a nice bottle of Sherry highlife for granma.

And all this hullabaloo for an anti-climax of one day that you have to spend with people you don’t want to necessarily be with. It’s amusing seeing how folks go out of their way to impress the in-laws (or is it out-laws), pretending to be all loving and family-centric, yet all year round, they bitch about the in-laws like a nonsense. It’s a day that has its only highlights as a meal of tired and dry turkey, cuddling around the fireplace and watching the Queen’s Christmas speech at 3.00 pm (someone needs to tell this woman to stop), and drinking like it’s going out of fashion, most folks don’t even make it past 5.00pm. And then you get to wonder why all the fuss.

I was watching news a couple of days ago when they were interviewing a lady about her husband who apparently has been held hostage in Iraq for 19 months. Her only lament was that it was sad that her husband was still in captivity and her young son will have no dad for a second Christmas. I don’t know about you, but there’s something wrong with that picture right there. Dads are not just for Christmas. Its almost like there’s a conspiracy that’s constantly fuelled this time of year to get out all the soppy stories of Christmas past that we’re supposed to reflect on and remind ourselves how important this day is.

No wonder you get people saying stupid things like “I think Christmas is a wonderful thing and I think it should be held every year” just because someone shoves a camera in their face to get an opinion of the festive season for the 6 o’clock news.