For countless years there has been a resident in my household that no one really liked. This resident saw no value in holidays, not just Christmas but ALL holidays. In his opinion a holiday was just a reason for missing work, an excuse to party and over all a huge waste of productive time. We won't even think about vacations! Why would someone get paid to be gone from work for a vacation? I'm here to tell you that resident was ME!
For years I volunteered to work holidays and would just accept the pay for my vacation while continuing to work during the time. I had the attitude that holidays and vacations were just a nuisance and excuse to be non-productive.
My views started to change a little after I started riding. Holiday weekends and vacation time began to be riding time. I justified this to myself by claiming that riding was a stress reliever (which it truly was). The Idea of hopping on the bike and just heading out for a three day weekend began to make me realize that productive time is good but everyone needs some time just to unwind. Motorcycling was my unwind mechanism. It began in small amounts. I would have a bad day at work and be ready to just explode. I would make a call to my wife (sometimes) and just say I would be late getting home from work. I could hop on my bike and just go, maybe a short ride or sometimes It would take hours but when I wheeled into the drive at home, the foils of the day were no longer a part of my mental process. The troubles had just blown away in the wind.
I began to appreciate time off, vacations and holidays, well most holidays. There was this one holiday, Christmas, that I still could not bring myself to enjoy. Now before anyone goes and gets all uptight, I have always appreciated the true meaning of Christmas, the birth of Jesus, but the part I had trouble with was the obvious need by everyone to all of a sudden, usually just this time of year, to be givers. Everyone had to get a gift. Then there was the competitiveness between people, you know, who could give the best gift, who got the best gift, who's party was better and so on.
When my sons were young I would force scrooge aside and make sure they got what they wanted and I would always get the wife a gift, all the while grumbling and complaining, sometimes out loud, sometimes just to myself, but complaining none the less.
I would have to say that 2009 was a big year for me. A year that forced open my eyes to more important things in life. A year that a door opened that exposed the truth that you can enjoy Christmas without getting competitive, without spending lots of money, without feeling guilty that someone got you a far nicer gift than you got them, if you got them one at all. There were really two events in '09 that assisted in the attitude change, the foremost (personal ones have a way of doing that) was my encounter with that car that destroyed my motorcycle and didn't do my body much good either and the other was finding out that a long time customer and a Friend had contracted cancer.
My accident had left me really bitter towards things. I started asking why me, what had I done to deserve this, and just overall feeling sorry for myself. Things like this were not supposed to happen to people like me. Then I found out about my Friend and the cancer. This really wasn't right! He is a great guy, a fantastic, giving and loving person. This just was not right! In both our cases our medical conditions were treatable, mine would heal in time and his was being treated with medical technology. I really had to question why something like cancer was allowed to inflict it's curse on such a good man, a good man with two young daughters, a man that was very giving and cared about his fellow person. The damage to my body healed and positively progressed. I was able to walk again, even if I needed the assistance of a cane and his cancer was sent into remission. I was beginning to think things were becoming right with the world again.
I had kind of lost touch with my Friend in early 2010. I had become heavily involved in my work again and sort of lost touch with the important things again, not to the degree of total emulsion as before the accident, but close. My Friend came into the shop in mid 2010 and I did not recognize him! He had lost weight and was bald. He still had that great smile on his face, but it was easy to tell things were not right. His previous cancer had gone into remission but now he had terminal liver cancer. This was just not right at all. Had my accident proven fatal, I could at least know that my children were grown and would fare well with their own families, my Friend still has two young daughters that have not reached that stage of life. They still are dependant on their dad for so many things. I got to see my sons graduate. I got to see my sons become a part of the military, I got to attend my sons weddings, all things that my Friend will most likely never get to do with his daughters. He is a nice guy, never hurt anyone and always has a nice word to say. I was not such a person.
I went through all that to say this, our life conditions are not based on fairness. Were fairness a qualifier, people like my Friend would live in palaces and never have a sick day while thieves and murderers would melt to lumps of worthless matter in the loneliness of the dessert. Life is what we make of it, not what we allow it to make of us. It has taken me many years to finally see this. The combination of the events finally got me to bury Scrooge and learn to start accepting life and enjoying the daily things that come my way. Simply being blessed enough to be alive this Christmas was an eye opener for me. The realization that the world does not revolve around me and that good, innocent people may not get that opportunity to share another day with loved ones, to no fault of their own, made me realize that Christmas is not about gifts or who got what or who spent more, Christmas, really every moment spent above ground, is a gift to be enjoyed, to be savored and no one can afford to waste that precious time being concerned about about who gave more or who got more.
