Christmas Morning

The colorful christmas lights are twinkling. The hazelnut coffee is brewing; what a glorious morning. It is our first christmas married and our first christmas with our baby girl. Too bad she is a congested stuffy little girl today, and also too young to know what makes today so special. We look forward to years and years of happy memories with her and the rest of our children - yet to come.

I can't help but reflect on how blessed and filled my life is. A wonderful spouse. A beautiful daughter. A home filled with everything and more. I never want for anything and if I did, my honey would do his best to give me what I ask for.

When I was little we'd be lucky if Santa visited our house. Truly we were blessed to have families from the community, or college students adopt our family and deliver bags filled with necessities at christmas time. Our church paid our rent and bought our clothes, shoes and food. I was called selfish when I asked for a shirt from Goodwill. As an adult I've told my mom how much it hurt me that she used to call me selfish when I asked for something... instead of including me and letting me know how hard it was to provide for the family, she just called me names and made me feel like a terrible person. My mom still insists it was selfish for me to ask for anything. I can't imagine what it must have felt like for her. So many kids, no money and a bastard husband who wasn't willing to work. She tried, she really did. One christmas she sewed all of us quilts. I have mine out this morning. It is still one of my favorite blankets.

I hope I can teach my children about the true meaning of christmas. I plan on "adopting" families at christmas time with my children and will teach them about giving to others less fortunate than us. I don't want them to be spoiled in the sense that they expect things or become rotten. Having things is fine, I just want them to be kind, loving, giving individuals.

Well off I go. Games are waiting for us to play and dinner needs attending to.

Fear of rejection

I was searching and reading on how to blog anonymously. After reading and reading, I found that it wasn't so much that I wanted to be anonymous in the sense that I was worried someone would steal my identity, or that they would harm me or my family in some way or another. No. It was/is something deeper. Something different than the person who is concerned blogging will keep them from getting hired or will get them fired. This is it: I fear rejection. I fear that no one will read my blog. Or that no one will comment. or that at first I'll have followers (or readers, or whatever you are all called), but eventually I'll become stale and boring. I fear friendship. I fear acceptance. To be accepted or befriended... and then to be dismissed, betrayed and left behind... this is more than I can fathom. This is why I'll write anonymously. If someone reads or doesn't read my blog, I will not care. Here I can write anonymously as though it is my diary. I write to myself and for myself.

The thing I desire most in life is probably love, friendship and acceptance. I crave friendship. For some reason it isn't my lot in life to have friends. I am a normal, intelligent, successful person. I have a good sense of humor... yada yada. Really, I would be the ideal friend except my friendship skills themselves are substandard. I can listen, laugh, cry, support and talk at appropriate times. I just can't call. And since I want friends so badly, I'm terrified of having them. I always remember the saying, "you have to be a friend to have a friend." The hardest part for me is getting over my phone anxiety. It's like when you go on a date, and after the date you want to call the person but you just hold the phone in your hand and go to your contacts list and sit there with their name highlighted for five minutes. Maybe eventually you call, maybe you don't. But that is me anytime I call a friend or an in-law or virtually anyone I care about who isn't totally committed to me. I stress myself out over phone calls daily! I just wish I could get over this phobia. Or, I wish my neighbors were friendly, closer in age and willing to become friends. If that were the case I would have no problem maintaining the friendship.

The psychologists out there can probably psychoanalyze what makes a person act this way. Abandonment issues? Abuse issues? Bipolar? Depression? Maybe. Maybe one or the other or a combination. Whatever it is, it is the reason I am choosing to blog anonymously.