5. January 2012 by Gennyfer.

People used to have tiny closets to hold their clothing. Washing machines and industrial manufacturing of clothing came along and we grew to need more space for our clothes. Television arrived and we could no longer just see what our neighbors had, but, we could see how people lived in far flung places. Television set design became more elaborate. Compare an old sitcom like “I Love Lucy” to sets of modern shows seen here. Then DIY shows showed us how to make our own spaces look like what we see on TV. Our brains get cluttered with all these images and we start to want what we see and finally expect what we see.

We started buying. New clothes every season. Shoes by the bagful. New, perfectly placed but, unmeaningful and uncherished decorations. We’ve ended up building so many houses with walk-in closets and huge garages, big enough to hold all of our stuff and we fill them anyway. Then we go out and by books on simplifying, organizing, decluttering. We hire organizers. We watch shows like Hoarder and secretly fear that we are only a few steps away from that kind of crazy. But, we still keep on buying.

When we die, we leave our loved ones with the horrible process of figuring out what to do with all the things we couldn’t let go. They pick up each piece and wonder if it was special, if they should keep it for their children. If it will somehow bring back what they really want… our love… our presence… more of what they didn’t have because we were so busy accumulating, cleaning, decluttering our stuff… our attention.

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3. January 2012 by Gennyfer.

Maybe it is my ambivalence about Christmas, my strange sense of time, or having moved this year, but,  taking the ornaments off the tree seems to be more onerous than ever. Of course, with my recent Fibromyalgia diagnosis and getting used to a medication that is making me feel nauseous for most of the day could be why too.

The holiday is something I don’t know how to manage to get my head around  each year, because, I am not Christian. My childhood Christmases weren’t celebrated with religion in mind either. I feel less grounded to these traditions as the years go by, unsure that I should be celebrating without a lot of meaning or spirituality involved, but, unsure how to navigate family waters to make changes. My children love Christmas and all the trimming, just as I did when I was a girl.

I often think that if it didn’t happen every year the amazing effort and hype would have more meaning to me and feel less exhausting than it does now. To a mother of 5 children it feels like an Olympic event and like the Olympics it should occur less often.  I don’t know if this would fix my attitude, but, I wish we could try it out for a few years, just to see.

Unpacking and packing all of our Christmas clutter this year reminds me of all the sorting and re-packing I need to do in the next six months and all the packing and unpacking we did in September. It feels overwhelming this year, more than usual, and as you probably can tell, I’m not good with this task in a normal year.

Maybe next year I’ll figure out a better way to get my head in the game. Maybe I’ll experience a conversion event and fully embrace the whole Christmas deal. Or I’ll figure out a way to skip decorating and go on a cruise. Oh that reminds me, I need to check the lottery tonight.

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2. January 2012 by Gennyfer.

We have a society built on dreams. “The American Dream.” Dreams of the future. Dreams are our hopes for a better future.

The arrival of the year 2012 has me reflecting on what happens when people believe an end-of-the-world prediction.

I was somewhere between the ages of 10 and 12 when my mother first told me when the world would end. It was to be 10 years in the future according to some source she trusted. During the same conversation she said something about humans originally being spirits that had offended God by inhabiting animals, so, we were forced to become flesh. I think her point was the end-of-the-world would be a good thing. I just felt hopeless and scared.

Her world’s end beliefs changed over the years depending on which “guru” she was following at the time and I don’t believe she even remembered all of them or marked their passing. I recall one prediction, not occurring, being explained away by 9/11. That was the predicted event and the psychics were picking up on the strong energy from that event.

It’s hard not to believe your parent when their belief’s are the basis for your own belief system. We didn’t talk about careers or how to support yourself. There was no future I should expect or plan. Many years later, I do wonder what my life would have looked like if I’d had the opportunity to dream about what I wanted to be when I grew up.

As we get further in to 2012 the news will be full of speculation about the Mayan calendar. I predict we’ll see many stories about how various people are imagining what will happen in December. These people being interviewed will be certain of their beliefs. Our children will watch these stories.  How can we help them maintain hope and perspective?

Keep talking about the future. Your plans for yourself, your hopes for your children, what they need to do to get from here to the fulfillment of their dreams, these are important discussions to have with your children or other children in your life.

No one knows when the end of the world will come. The ultimate glass-half-empty thinking is the idea that any of us could die tomorrow so why bother doing anything. Teach your children to seize the day and plan for the wonder of tomorrow. Teach them how to live not how to die.

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1. January 2012 by Gennyfer.

• To blog 345 times this year.
• To learn to let go of stress.
• To not leave a room without taking something to put away.

Simple, clear, concise. Deliberate.

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