Do you get it

Sometimes I wish I could just find someone that gets it. I think if someone else gets it than I will not feel so abnormal. I start dreading the holidays oh about November 1^st and I can’t wait for New Years to get here. It isn’t really like me to wish the days away. New Years is one of my top three holidays. July 4^th and Easter being the other two. December 31^st means it is all over with until next year and I am relieved. I often refer to myself as a scrooge, but after looking up the definition I can clearly see that I am not. I feel a little better.

Scrooge is a cold-hearted, tight-fisted and greedy man, who despises Christmas and all things which engender happiness.- Wikipedia

I want to clarify that I am a Christian and I believe on December 25^th that we should all commemorate the birth of Jesus, but this isn’t really what Christmas is all about. It is all the other festivities that I despise. This is what I wished people would get. I do realize that the reason I may view Christmas comes from growing up in a home that never had the money to celebrate, but I truthfully think that is more to the fact that I don’t have my place to go to every year.  I got tired of trying to decide which place, home, family and friends that I would fit in with and celebrate. I do realize that I am extremely lucky to have options since there are people out there that have none.

I remember the first handful of years that I was on my own. I have many pictures and memories of celebrating with friends, families of friends, my distant family, roommates, boyfriends and families of boyfriends. I went all out, got excited and enjoyed them as much as I knew how. Every year there was a new tradition I would try to start to only be disappointed to not be able to do that tradition with the same people next year. As the time passed it just got exhausting and after spending a holiday alone I realized I enjoyed it just as much. It wasn’t because of me that I didn’t spend the holidays alone every year it was because everyone else didn’t get it. Everyone else just doesn’t understand how someone could sit alone on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. They feel sorry for you, they want to invite you over and hopefully make your Christmas an awesome one. What they don’t get is that I don’t need that to make it better. I really am happy just being able to have another day off of work to do what I wish.

This year I was told that if I decorate, try and take action in holiday festivities it will put me in the “spirit” of Christmas. I thought I would give it a try. I figure it doesn’t hurt anything and maybe something magical will happen. I am a firm believer that one should never get too old to believe in a little magic! I recorded some Christmas music, pulled out the decorations and even had some candles going to get the scent of Christmas. I shouted out on my face book page, took pictures and had friends encouraging my behavior. I was set and ready to try and embark on this holiday season.

When I pulled down the boxes I was surprised to see how long it had been since I had decorated. I think it has been close to five years. I admit I was disappointed in myself, not because I care, but because society does. I don’t want society to frown upon my behavior. After all the effort I put in to this evening of decorating was finished I sat on my couch, looked at the blinking lights, smelt the apple cinnamon and since my apartment is rather small I was surrounded by red and green. The only thing I felt was the need to reorganize, wash, clean and pack all the stuff back up. I ignored this urge for a couple of weeks and continued on with trying to get in the spirit.

I signed up to do some holiday volunteering at the local children’s hospital. I made a point to rent Christmas themed movies on Sunday evenings to watch with my boyfriend. We put a Christmas puzzle together to hopefully start a tradition and even drove two hours out of our way to go to a spectacular drive through Christmas light show. I sent out my bills with a Christmas card. I even downloaded Christmas ring tones that I assigned to my most frequent callers.

 I am still just as ready for the holiday to be over as I was to start trying to embrace it. I almost have everything cleaned, reorganize, put away and packed back up. I will have the normal conversations with friends that I have every year about trying to get me to come and join their families. I will keep wishing that someone will get it, respect it and know that it isn’t as bad as they think it is. On a lighter note, I do hope that everyone has a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Years. I will be rather interested to compare this year to next year and every year after that.  Here are some pictures of the amazing lights that we saw. Everyone should experience Santa Land at least once.

Relationships

  It was the inevitable there would be an entry or two on this subject. However, this is not just any post about relationships. This is my sixth month anniversary reflection note to myself post. According to the World Wide Web six months is a major stepping stone not to be taken lightly. Please bare with me in this mix of madness in finding the “one” to enjoy the ride of life with and enjoy my tall of tales while doing so.

He is so darn sweet. I am sure my teeth are over flowing with cavities already. There has been more than one instance that he went shopping and was eligible for a “free gift” and he picked out the her option for me. I couldn’t believe it. We try to alternate on picking out what we do to celebrate our special day. It was my turn and I wanted him to experience some new things, while also being able to share a few memories from my youth. Saturday morning we headed East and went to First Monday in Canton, dinner at a Mexican place and then to Santa Land towards Tyler. He enjoyed First Monday so much, he wanted to go back on Sunday. I think we may be seeing a lot more First Monday's. Sunday was very lazy. We skipped church, ( I know, I know, Shame Shame) finished putting together the puzzle we started on Friday, I cooked his favorites, movie time and made some yummy blizzards for dessert. I have decided cheesy is fun and even a little healthy.  Please take a look at what I got for our six month anniversary present. My friends will see this and instantly know how much I enjoyed this gift and for my boyfriend to be the one that purchased it for me… gosh, I don’t think it could get much better.

I have often referenced the famous quote “people come in to your life for a reason, a season and a lifetime”. It is figuring out which one they were, learning from what they brought and being thankful for what they are that can sometimes be difficult to do.  A very dear to my heart friend once said to me, “When you find the person you are going to spend the rest of your life with, it will be your best friend”. She emphasized on what that meant.  It would be just like I was sitting there with her. It will be the same as being able to sit out on the patio, talk all night without any judgment or fear in what was being said, but only the freedom of sharing all that you want. It may be sitting and saying nothing at all or going to do something that you wouldn’t even think of doing with someone else. No hesitation, the pure comfort of what true friendship brings. It wasn’t until she gave me more examples of our friendship that I truly understood it. This has been my philosophy for my relationships. It is one of the first things I pull out when feeling lost or questioning what I have with someone. You should never be in a relationship with someone that treats you any less than your best girlfriend does.

My friend, also known as my boyfriend came in to my life about seven months ago. I sit here and smile as I am reflecting over the past six months. Statistics would say I am a one in a million in so many aspects of my life, but when it came to meeting him I fail right in to the the clichés of finding love, which is kind of nice to say. The clichés I am referring to would be: I wasn’t looking at all, I had sworn off men, caught by complete surprise, did not even realize what was happening and love will find you when you least expect it.

A big surprise was how effortless this transition from being single to having a boyfriend was. For the first time I didn’t feel like I was leaving who I was to become a girlfriend. I could probably spend the rest of this blog sharing the list of “first times”, but I want to share the most important one to me thus far. I finally know what it is like having someone that sincerely just wants to make me happy and encourages me to do better things for myself. Kristina being happy is what puts a smile on his face. It is an incredible feeling. This was something that I didn’t understand until I experienced it. Most of you experience this sort of thing from your parents, you being happy makes them happy and they want you to do your best. It is unfortunate, but since I did not get this from my parents it was all new. If you aren’t aware of this love you don’t look for it. I do make sure and spend time thanking God for sending it my way.  I am a happy person and enjoy making people happy, so if me being happy is what makes my boyfriend happy, life in this relationship is going to be filled with lots of happy. Healthy is happy.  

I have always thought it is hard to put up with woman and felt that we are more than worth it, but it does take a special, kind, patient and pretty awesome guy to “deal” with us. This is all true, but not to the extent I was giving it credit. He reminds me all the time how easy it really is to just love me. I want to say hats off to all those amazing men that don’t see woman as “work”, but are just thankful that they get the opportunity to be able to procreate with us. I have learned so much in this relationship and only find myself getting more excited. It just keeps getting better and that is the way it should be.

I have this little book I carry around with me and there are a lot of random things written in it. One day, many years ago I was watching, I think it was Jerry Maguire and Renee Zellweger was talking about what she wanted out of love. I should have written down then reference. I related to some, wished for others and just didn’t want to forget the rest.

“You tell them something that you are scared to tell them, you are afraid it will make them stop loving you and you are surprised to learn that it makes them love you more”, “You put on your favorite cologne, I my perfume and we go out and enjoy smelling one another all night”, “My grandma has arthritis, she can’t bend down to paint her toes, my grandpa does it for her all the time, even though he has it too”

I can only hope that you find your best friend and if you have already, congrats to you.