I've just spent Christmas with my mother's side of the family for the first time in my life. I figured out that family means nothing while at the same time it means everything. I've never felt close to any of my extended family. Yes, biologically we're connected, but I've never felt too much emotional connection to them. Maybe it's the fact that I didn't grow up around family, I grew up in places where getting together with them happened after years of being away from them, and only for a few days at a time. Sometimes a few relatives would come out to visit, and then after they left, I got on with my life. I'm not used to them. On top of all that, I'm not very social. I'm quiet, I don't open up to people within a few minutes or even hours of meeting them. It takes a long time for me to be comfortable around strangers, and to me, these people feel like strangers. And so, "family" means nothing. Yet, at the same time, I realized, I do know these people. I can see familiar themes, in their words and phrases and their mannerisms and voices, in their appearances and faces. I slip so easily into the cadence of speech, I start to use the accents and slang. Even if I don't remember them, I do know them; which means, "family" means everything.
That's one thing I learned this Christmas. Another is "It's not easy being green." I know that needs an explanation. I bought, with my Christmas gift money, Sesame Street Old School: Vol. 1, and watched with joy "Bein Green". Maybe it was just the fact that it was so late at night, but I just suddenly got it. As a quiet person, "It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things, and people tend to pass you over, cuz you're not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water or stars in the sky." (Still with me?) But then, Kermit sings about all the good things green can be, "The color of spring," or, like I feel quiet can be "cool and friendly-like" and of course green can be "big like an ocean, or important like a mountain or tall like a tree." So, like Kermit, being green, or me, being a little quiet, if it's "all there is to be, it can make you wonder, but why wonder, why wonder? I'm green and it'll do fine, it's beautiful and I think it's what I wan to be." So, the whole point of my ramble here, is just that, don't try to change to please other people, especially when those people aren't all that important anyway, and you can find something you like about your difference. Then again, maybe I've just had too much hot chocolate lately.
Another thing I learned, today, driving back to Virginia from Maryland, with a frightened cat on my lap as I sat in the back (tiny) seat of my Dad's truck with a big trailer behind us and Jeremy Camp's Beyon Measure playing on my ipod, no matter how rough, strange, uncomfortable, off-balance my life has been or will be, God has given me all I have, and has so much more waiting for me. He loved me enough to give His son, and his giving won't end there. Praise God, and bring on the New Year!
Till next I write!
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