It is on cusp of the first of the holidays of the holiday season of 2011.
We are staying home this Thanksgiving. We found it most practical to stay home because of the current situation at my job--lots of staying late. There is some thankfulness that we stayed home because of one of the main freeway bridges over the Ohio River being shut down due to cracks. The closed bridge has has caused significantly more congestion going out of Louisville.
We have our plans. It will be a simple dinner. We have the turkey breast versus the whole turkey. There will be no pumpkin pie because I am on a diet and I have not convinced my wife and my children that it actually is quite good. I expect we will watch the Macy's parade and eat after the parade while the dog show is going on. We will go to one of the local convenience store and have hot beverages in the afternoon to get out of the house so we don't go stir-crazy.
Thanksgiving 1968
Today I found myself remembering the Thanksgivings my grandmother hosted in the late 1960's and early 1970's. In my nostalgia, I do miss them because they appeared to be where the action was. I remember the smell of the gas stove and the cooking stuffing/dressing and turkey. I remember the sound of the electric beater whipping the mashed potatoes. I remember seeing my grandfather carving the turkey with the electric knife and getting greasy hands.
My grandmother and grandfather would have 15 to 20 people in the house and they were not all family. There would be people at the main table, side table and then me at the coffee table eating on my knees with the second cousin a little younger than myself.
I would see the picture of the crowd of people who attended Thanksgiving 1968 whenever I went to my grandmother's house in Des Moines, and then at her mobile home in Florida. I always looked for me in the picture off to the side where my mother was holding me tight to keep me out of trouble (they tell me I was quite the active toddler). It was the "glory days" of my grandmother's hosting, and that large photograph was the trophy.
I kind of miss that kind of gathering, but then in my nostalgia, I was only a young child and I had no earthly clue about the drama that was going on amongst the adults. I did not have an understanding of the criticisms my grandmother had made and my mother's reactive defensiveness.
While my mother continued to rail about during the rest of my childhood about the criticisms, it was not until I was into my teenage years and started to feel my own exasperation about my grandmother's incessant and insatiable need to talk about her perception of what was wrong with me (my teeth, my hair, my face, the college I was going to go to). The yellowing photograph in the same picture frame over 40 years does not tell the whole picture of what went on.
Nostalgia can be a lot like the "pink stuff" or Saccharin-based sweetener that a lot of people still put in their coffee and other beverages. It has the worst after-taste if you partake in too much of it and maybe with just one packet.
Nostalgia versus grief and loss
Mind you we do all have our memories. Nostalgia aside, some of our pasts are better than our present currently is. I think that grief often accompanies nostalgia because we often have to endure the thought and emotion that we no longer have that which was good or at least that we remembered to be good.
With the grief accompanying nostalgia we may have a variety of feelings: sadness, anger, and depression. I would like to offer that this is a situational depression versus a clinical depression because we are having a feeling that is a reaction.
The grief can be worse with the passing of a loved one that was at the last Thanksgiving. It can be worse if you depended on that loved one to organize and host the meal. Thanksgiving indeed will not be the same.
Changing your frame of mind
Dwelling on the losses of the past is like sitting on a tack. You can get up and remove the pain from your derriere or continue to sit, bleed and hurt. You have a choice.
The choice is that you are going to choose whether you dwell on the past or focus your mind on something now. I think that having a variety of distraction options to occupy our minds on may be necessary. Some of the options involve mind and body.
I am working on taking my own advice this year and my options for this four-day weekend include the following:
1) A project of building two small bookshelves for the bedroom so I do not have such a mess by my bedside.
2) Switching off between four different books including two Edward Abbey books (I have recently discovered Edward Abbey and his personal history of being a national park ranger to be just fascinating)
3) Helping my son with his Pinewood Derby car.
I have found being busy in both mind and body are often necessary. I have decided that is why many like to go serve meals in missions and soup lines at the holiday (an excellent perception correction).
I have a colleague that has frequently suggested to others that they go and make some new memories. That can be a good option--your present does become your past. Why not make it something that you can remember with pride instead of just another day of sitting and moping over what was?
I will be the first to say that it is all easier said than done. Sure you may be alone with your thoughts and not have money to do anything. But I think that it can be a lot of little activities that are not going to cost you anything instead of one big activity. What can you do now that you can afford? Pick up litter in your neighborhood, serve in the serving line at a mission? Go for a walk (weather permitting)?
I hope that your fourth Thursday of November is better than you expect.
We are staying home this Thanksgiving. We found it most practical to stay home because of the current situation at my job--lots of staying late. There is some thankfulness that we stayed home because of one of the main freeway bridges over the Ohio River being shut down due to cracks. The closed bridge has has caused significantly more congestion going out of Louisville.
We have our plans. It will be a simple dinner. We have the turkey breast versus the whole turkey. There will be no pumpkin pie because I am on a diet and I have not convinced my wife and my children that it actually is quite good. I expect we will watch the Macy's parade and eat after the parade while the dog show is going on. We will go to one of the local convenience store and have hot beverages in the afternoon to get out of the house so we don't go stir-crazy.
Thanksgiving 1968
Today I found myself remembering the Thanksgivings my grandmother hosted in the late 1960's and early 1970's. In my nostalgia, I do miss them because they appeared to be where the action was. I remember the smell of the gas stove and the cooking stuffing/dressing and turkey. I remember the sound of the electric beater whipping the mashed potatoes. I remember seeing my grandfather carving the turkey with the electric knife and getting greasy hands.
My grandmother and grandfather would have 15 to 20 people in the house and they were not all family. There would be people at the main table, side table and then me at the coffee table eating on my knees with the second cousin a little younger than myself.
I would see the picture of the crowd of people who attended Thanksgiving 1968 whenever I went to my grandmother's house in Des Moines, and then at her mobile home in Florida. I always looked for me in the picture off to the side where my mother was holding me tight to keep me out of trouble (they tell me I was quite the active toddler). It was the "glory days" of my grandmother's hosting, and that large photograph was the trophy.
I kind of miss that kind of gathering, but then in my nostalgia, I was only a young child and I had no earthly clue about the drama that was going on amongst the adults. I did not have an understanding of the criticisms my grandmother had made and my mother's reactive defensiveness.
While my mother continued to rail about during the rest of my childhood about the criticisms, it was not until I was into my teenage years and started to feel my own exasperation about my grandmother's incessant and insatiable need to talk about her perception of what was wrong with me (my teeth, my hair, my face, the college I was going to go to). The yellowing photograph in the same picture frame over 40 years does not tell the whole picture of what went on.
Nostalgia can be a lot like the "pink stuff" or Saccharin-based sweetener that a lot of people still put in their coffee and other beverages. It has the worst after-taste if you partake in too much of it and maybe with just one packet.
Nostalgia versus grief and loss
Mind you we do all have our memories. Nostalgia aside, some of our pasts are better than our present currently is. I think that grief often accompanies nostalgia because we often have to endure the thought and emotion that we no longer have that which was good or at least that we remembered to be good.
With the grief accompanying nostalgia we may have a variety of feelings: sadness, anger, and depression. I would like to offer that this is a situational depression versus a clinical depression because we are having a feeling that is a reaction.
The grief can be worse with the passing of a loved one that was at the last Thanksgiving. It can be worse if you depended on that loved one to organize and host the meal. Thanksgiving indeed will not be the same.
Changing your frame of mind
Dwelling on the losses of the past is like sitting on a tack. You can get up and remove the pain from your derriere or continue to sit, bleed and hurt. You have a choice.
The choice is that you are going to choose whether you dwell on the past or focus your mind on something now. I think that having a variety of distraction options to occupy our minds on may be necessary. Some of the options involve mind and body.
I am working on taking my own advice this year and my options for this four-day weekend include the following:
1) A project of building two small bookshelves for the bedroom so I do not have such a mess by my bedside.
2) Switching off between four different books including two Edward Abbey books (I have recently discovered Edward Abbey and his personal history of being a national park ranger to be just fascinating)
3) Helping my son with his Pinewood Derby car.
I have found being busy in both mind and body are often necessary. I have decided that is why many like to go serve meals in missions and soup lines at the holiday (an excellent perception correction).
I have a colleague that has frequently suggested to others that they go and make some new memories. That can be a good option--your present does become your past. Why not make it something that you can remember with pride instead of just another day of sitting and moping over what was?
I will be the first to say that it is all easier said than done. Sure you may be alone with your thoughts and not have money to do anything. But I think that it can be a lot of little activities that are not going to cost you anything instead of one big activity. What can you do now that you can afford? Pick up litter in your neighborhood, serve in the serving line at a mission? Go for a walk (weather permitting)?
I hope that your fourth Thursday of November is better than you expect.
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