I've just had another dismal failure of a Christmas Eve with my family. We're all nice, loving, outgoing people - yet why, oh why are we incapable of having cohesive family time without issues from the past coming up and causing emotional break down?
This year I can thankfully say that it wasn't me. I'm on point in 2008, having gotten myself off drugs, alchohol, sugar, caffeine, and anything else roller coaster-ish about 4 months ago, I am enjoying an extended period of well tempered behavior and am able to cut myself off at the pass long before I go into my head about things that don't really matter - mostly by getting out of my parents house and either excercising or doing something to shift my state of being.
I am quite amazed though, at how hard it is for families to function in this day and age.
We all seem capable of amazing feats both technologically, socially, economically, -- you name it. But when it comes down to the simple act of returning to our families and finding the things we have in common, we often tend to fall into ruts where all we notice are the things that separate us.
It's as though each family member represents a part of you that you have vowed not to indulge - and there it becomes unusually amplified and hard to ignore.
Needless to say, it is my goal to rise above this way of being and find more ways to celebrate what we share rather than get down on what we don't. Or at the very least learn when to keep my mouth shut and find other ways of expressing my issues and concerns when it is more appropriate or constructive.
The easy way is not always the most graceful - and yet I can't help but wish that with a bit more transparency we would all have a lot easier time of things. Why oh why do we have so many secrets?
