November marks the beginning of the holiday season and my brain automatically shuts down. Every year, about a week before Thanksgiving, I realize that I have not ordered a fresh turkey nor have I given a moment's thought to what else I plan to serve. So I call the local organic grocery store and order the turkey and decide to quell the holiday panic that is beginning to set in by checking Facebook and researching Important Topics on the internet. Somehow I always manage to brine the turkey, make the stuffing and other side dishes, bake an apple pie, and remain standing until the last dish is washed. Black Friday is when I start to panic about Christmas.
Buying gifts for my family is like bringing coals to Newcastle. Everyone not only has everything he or she could possibly need or want, the girls are equipped with credit cards (which Mommy and Daddy pay for) so they have no sense of deprivation. None. Every Christmas I agonize over what to get them so they will feel loved and know that Daddy and I were thinking of them and missing them. I feel successful if they like one out of five gifts under the tree. Hubby, is another problem. He doesn't want anything, he doesn't like anything, he doesn't want me to spend money, and he hates it when I try to improve his fashion sense. I repeat the Serenity Prayer several times every day while I muddle through the "most wonderful time of the year" and try to stay on top of the extra laundry generated by having two adult children in the house who can't seem to remember how to do their own. By mid-January, the house is empty again except that my in-laws are down for the winter months, which is not a problem except that each December they arrive at death's door or recovering from surgery or both and a good bit of my time is spent driving back and forth from home to hospital to apartment. By late February, the health crises have responded to the Florida sunshine and the incessant driving ceases, but my mental health is shot and my creditors are hounding me for payment of the bills that piled up and got lost while I was being a caregiver.
March is a busy birthday month so I spin my wheels for several weeks trying to figure out how to make the birthday boy or girl feel special. Rarely do my plans work out. This year, I wanted to have a little dinner party for Hubby (who's having a big birthday). Everyone I invited was free to join us -- except for Hubby. He had booked a flight to London and couldn't change the ticket. Plan B didn't work out because my best friends were not free that night. Maybe next year.
At some point in April, the in-laws return to the north and my focus begins returning, and then Daughter #2 comes home from college for the summer where she has a big deal internship with a Fortune 500 company. Perhaps it is the longer days, but despite the heat and humidity I am always extremely productive in Summer, especially after I have taken care of the other birthdays. I go on cleaning and weeding binges that actually make a difference. I give the horse a haircut or two, depending on how fast his coat grows in, I wash the dogs, I work on my novel, and then it is back-to-school time.
From mid-September until early November, I often have time and the focus to write. And then the fuzzy vision sets in and my novel languishes until the snowbirds fly north in the spring. What I need is a stay-at-home wife to run the household. Oh. That's my job. Never mind.
Copyright 2013 Teresa Friedlander, all rights reserved
