Is it me or has this year flown by? Here we are at Thanksgiving! And I mean Thanksgiving, not Black Friday or any of those “holidays” touted in the media lately.
Here in the U.S., many people (especially me) plan to overdose on turkey and all of the trimmings. But not every Thanksgiving meal includes turkey. One Thanksgiving, my family had different types of pasta, having all agreed that we didn’t want turkey. Another Thanksgiving meal featured some really great beef ribs.
Anyway, have a wonderful Thanksgiving! What is your favorite Thanksgiving menu item? Do tell in the comments below. I have several favorites: turkey (despite not wanting it one Thanksgiving), cranberry sauce, cornbread dressing, and sweet potato pie.
Happy Thanksgiving from Henry, Lazy Buns, and the Squeezamal. I plan to be a lazy buns and skip Black Friday shopping.
Turkey from wallyball.homestead. Other photo by L. Marie. Squeezamals are a product of Beverly Hills Teddy Bear Company. Lazy Buns is a Pop Hair Pet, a product of MGA Entertainment.
I went to the same school as Stephen Colbert and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. I’ll pause to give you time to look up which school they went to. (If you are a follower of this blog, you already know which school.)
You’re back? Okay good. The first thing you’ll notice is that they are celebrities and I am not. Not everyone who went there is. But while I was an undergraduate, and even after graduating, I felt the pressure to live up to the prestige of the university. During my time there, when I chose to major in writing, many people gave me the stink eye. “Major in something useful,” I was advised over and over. (Code word: more prestigious, at least in their eyes.) “In that way, you can make a lot of money and be an alumna the school can be proud of.”
The pressure to be something.
(Though nowadays, the latter message comes through in the frequent invitations to donate to the alumni fund. The pressure to give something.)
Ever feel the pressure to be something others have decided is the definition of success?
As a writer, I definitely feel the pressure. My grad program has turned out graduates who have won major awards and who have sold many, many books. Even the organization of children’s writers and illustrators that I belong to routinely sends emails about those who have “made it,” while extending the invitation to “Send us your success stories.”
But what if you’re the writer of some books that went out of print within two years? Or you’ve racked up 89 rejections for a book?
The pressure to be something.
Ever feel like you didn’t measure up somehow? Maybe like me you even fell into the funnel of comparison recently, and felt yourself squeezed out of the small end.
Comparison—the bane of our existence
Thoughts like that swirled through my head as I drove to Wal-Mart the other day. Yeah, I know I shouldn’t let such thoughts hold sway. I’m trying to get my mind right and defeat negative thinking. But for some reason, I thought about the sister who had died the year before I was born. I found myself crying and wondering why she was stillborn, while I lived. Not that I’m ungrateful for life. But because I lived, was I really being all I could be? Was I living up to the potential teachers and others had told me I had over the years?
The pressure to be something. The pressure to make my life count because my sister was dead and I was alive.
But after prayer (because I was really getting worked up), I realized, Wait. I could silence that nagging voice in my head—the one that caused me to feel the pressure to measure myself against someone else’s ruler. I could silence the strive, strive, strive, you’re not doing it right, make things happen and just be.
Be . . .
Content in who I am—someone who persists past rejection and failure.
Joyful regardless.
I’m not Stephen Colbert. I like the guy. I really do. But I don’t have to be him or Julia Louis-Dreyfus to be somebody. I already am somebody. I might not do life like them. But I do what I do, because I like doing what I do, whether that fits someone else’s protocol or not.
And now, I’ll leave you with a Lindsey Stirling video, suggested by a friend who went to Lindsey’s concert the other day. It’s for anyone who needs to get out of the pressure and into joy.
Marsha Mello likes being with the Unfinished Tiger. His chill approach to life—that all of us are works in progress—soothes her.
Stephen Colbert photo from enspireusall.com. Julia Louis-Dreyfus photo from popsugar.com. Other photos by L. Marie. Marsha Mello and Donatina Shoppie dolls from Moose Toys.
Every bookcase needs a belly button. What? You don’t believe that? It just so happens that mine has one. (And yes, my bookshelves are crowded.)
Have you spotted it yet? The belly button I mean. It’s the word joy. A belly button reminds me that I was born a vulnerable human being—a tiny baby connected to my mother for nine months. Joy reminds me that I’m still a vulnerable human being in need of the fresh perspective that joy brings.
And of course, this season of Christmas with songs that declare “O tidings of comfort and joy” and “Joy to the World, the Lord is come” are a vivid reminder to be proactive about being joyful. Not always easy, huh?
You know, the word joy has occupied my bookshelf so long—years actually—I stopped seeing it until today when I needed the reminder. See, instead of tidings of joy, I’ve been singing tidings of grumpiness, constantly focused on what I think I don’t have or what I do have (loud neighbors, a car with bald tires, a refrigerator without chocolate). I’d forgotten that joy, unlike happiness, isn’t intermittent or based on things going right. It’s an all-day feeling—a secret room in my heart. I can go there, put my feet up, and remember. As Maria (Julie Andrews) in The Sound of Music sang, “These are a few of my favorite things.”
Take a joy break with me today. Remember what brings you joy.
“These are a few of my favorite thiiiiiiiiiiiiings!”
Julie Andrews as Maria von Trapp from fanpop.com. Prince Zuko from probablymortal.com. M&Ms from shinebeautybeacon.blogspot.com. Royal Poinciana tree from commons.wikimedia.org.
Is it me or has this year flown by? Here we are at Thanksgiving! And I mean Thanksgiving, not Black Friday or any of those “holidays” touted in the media lately.
El Space--The Blog of L. Marie 