Comfort and Joy

Christmas is difficult for me.  I struggle every year with "finding the magic."  And I mostly just feel irritation at the nearly constant reminder that I should be jolly.  I feel bombarded with Christmas and this is what upsets me.  Christmas should be small and private, not ostentatious and public.

It doesn't even occur to my clients to worry about the holidays in an existential way, they worry about the holidays in a very practical way.  The holidays are almost universally regarded as stressful and if you're homeless, if you don't have custody of your kids, if you're mentally ill or dealing with a severe substance abuse problem, if you're unemployed or getting evicted or thought that you were getting your meager paycheck and then got it and realized that 25% of your paycheck got taken because you got sued over that hospital bill from last Spring, that stress is magnified.  Well meaning people like me sit in homeless shelters decorated with Dr. Seuss trees and cheap tinsel and try to say that the holiday stress is created and should not take your energy.  I try to express my opinion that they have a falsely created need to have a Magical Holiday.  It falls on serious faces who can't process what I am saying.  They are programed to wait for a Christmas Miracle that will not come for them.  Their kids will still be in foster care.  They will still be homeless and unemployed.  "Merry Christmas to all!" as a spiritual wish can be fulfilled for everyone, but family, gifts, food and your own residence cannot be fulfilled for everyone.  I wait until after the New Year to start working again on issues that can be addressed.

All of the clients I have listed above are at least out and about.  They can smoke a cigarette or use a pen or get on the Internet.  But once a month I go visit some ladies at the Regional Center and they make me grateful every time I meet with them.  Some are there for a month or so while their medications stabilize and they get into a halfway house.  Others are there for months or years while they wait for a criminal trial that may or may not happen depending on their competency.  There is a deprivation and isolation that leaves me gasping for air when I leave.  I have decided that it is worse than jail.  The Regional Center is a campus of huge institutional buildings surrounded with an arboretum.  (No!  For real!  It's a Nebraska State Arboretum with walking paths and tree labels and everything - all between buildings of mentally ill people who are unsafe in the community and must be locked up.)

And?  There are Christmas decorations out there.  Inflatable Christmas decorations.  Outside the unit that I visit there is an inflatable band of Santa, a penguin (those are the South Pole, right?), and a bear - all playing instruments.  When I saw them this month I felt like I had been socked in the stomach.  It took me a couple of days to process what I saw.  I actually went back Sunday to take photos of them.  I needed to know that they were real.  Bill came with me and we walked around looking at the trees, buildings and other inflatable ornaments.  Bill pointed out that the ornaments are practical because they don't take up much storage place.  The patients are locked up and can't see them.  The staff come and go and with some exceptions, they are a gloomy and uninspiring bunch.  It's extra sad to have Christmas decorations that no one appreciates.  I feel bad for the smiling polar bear and wonder if anyone has ever smiled back at him.

I read some reports about the tragedy in Newtown and one of the details that stood out to me that people are taking down their holiday decorations.  They can't deal with Christmas so soon after the absolute tragedy that has wracked that town and this country.  I could not help but relate to this inability to deal with forced holiday cheer.  No doubt there are presents purchased for children who are dead and will never get them.  There are cookies decorated by dead children in a tupperware container on some poor parent's counter.  I can't imagine.  I am thinking about the practical stuff right now and can't comprehend it, so I take it out on Christmas decorations.

Not everyone feels happy when they see an inflatable reindeer.  That's ok.  Joy and peace come from within and it is going to be a daily struggle for those poor parents.  I am grateful to my clients for the perspective they give me.  I am a fortunate person in so many ways.