Taking stock of our journeys on Christmas

posted by Jeff | Friday, December 26, 2008, 12:39 AM | comments: 2

I survived phase one of A Mattoni Family Christmas. From what I'm told, it was the first time that so much of the family (in Toledo) had managed to get together in the same place for a reason other than a funeral.

Diana's dad, Sam, and his "special friend" Helen Ann, who was also friends with Diana's mom, are staying with us for the long weekend. After we got home, we crashed around the living room, sipping beverages and talking. It started with the way kids connect with grown-ups. I strongly believe that kids are just as willing to engage if adults initiate the contact, but the only thing truly different is that kids get together and play video games instead of playing with action figures.

I gave them the history on my family relationships, and how they've often been sub-optimal. I told them how I found out today that my brother was in jail for a DUI. Indeed, these are things that are largely out of my control, but you learn to roll with them because it's really the best you can do.

Eventually we got on to a conversation about how Helen Ann's "boys" (and by boys, I mean grown men around 40) have made it a habit to preach at her about getting divorced from their (step) father. This began to go down just two years ago. Always enjoying the opportunity to be an armchair therapist, obviously a symptom of my own many sessions, I listened and got to understand the bigger story. While their reactions aren't rational, it's easy to understand how they got there.

We got to talking about how ultimately people all take their own journey to figuring out how to be happy, and in a lot of cases they end up making others miserable in the process. I think that's what her kids are doing, and she's taking the ugly end of it from them. But she correctly states that she has to be happy and enjoy her life, figuring that she's got 20 good years left. She certainly doesn't want to spend them in a marriage that didn't work.

The thing I've noticed about virtually everyone's journey is that they spend a lot of time trying to make others happy, often at the expense of their own happiness. I'd go as far as to say that the midlife crisis that most people have, whether it involves buying a Porsche or having an affair or whatever, comes out of trying to understand what makes you happy. While it's an ongoing process for sure, just acknowledging it at all is a turning point in your life. And it's sad that some people start too late or never figure it out.

When she mentioned that her sister felt she was the happiest she had been in years, that struck a chord with me. People have said the same thing to me. In fact, the four of us sitting there clearly had two or three very tough years. Me and Helen Ann both lost our marriages. Diana lost a mom, while Sam lost a spouse. And yet, here were the four of us, just being happy with ourselves. When you dismiss the silly doctrine that says looking out for yourself is being selfish, it's freeing to see how happy you can be with each other.

Above all, we have to release ourselves from any liability to others that prevents us from being happy. Others must not exert that power over us. The power to be happy resides inside each of us. We need to take care of that power. When we truly own it, every Christmas on our journey can be the new best Christmas ever.


Comments

December 26, 2008, 10:19 PM #

Amen to that

MandoMama

December 27, 2008, 1:02 AM #

This is one of the best blog posts I've read, anywhere. It's refreshing to hear someone say/write, "I'm responsible for my own happiness and that's how it should be." THANK YOU. As awful as so many of the events in the last couple of years have been, sometimes we don't connect with that lesson until we're in real trouble. I'm no fan of trouble but I am grateful I've had many "opportunities" to figure things out and appreciate how satisfying life is, all the more because it's the one I made.

Congratulations on your first big family holiday weekend experience! Hope it continues to go well.


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