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Title: I Get By Feedback: Please! It's like rain on a desert... Rain King is on now... Summary: Some traditions aren't so traditional, and all of them help us to live our lives. Notes: I wrote this impulsively, after doing guess what...well, you'll figure it out when you read it. There's a rather obvious MarySue figure in here. I apologize for any formatting, grammar, or capitalization errors as my WP program doesn't have grammar or caps check. (Stupid Works.) Oh! An d the is shamelessly stolen from The Beatles I should hate Christmas, I really should. After all that I've been through, I should want to smash every delicate ornament to smithereens and scream and cry at carolers. I am entitled to sit alone and watch reruns of old movies and Brady Specials on late night TV. I can cry all week, from the twentieth to the twenty-seventh, and no one would question my right to do so. I, of all people, should shut and lock my doors, huddle up on the couch with a mocha and cry myself to sleep as the fireplace burns down to smoldering ashes. But I don't. I hate the memories associated with Christmas, yes. In my situation, who wouldn't? I have one night, the twenty-second. Yes, I have a designated Christmas "night". I look at pictures, smile a bit, cry a bit, drink some cocoa and fall asleep curled around a fluffy pillow with a few telltale tear marks. But that's it, really. I delight in the magic of the holiday. How the birth of one poverty stricken child in the declining Roman Empire so changed the world. So, like any person who is alone, I rent movies. I go to Blockbuster every other day, and rent the classics. Christmas classics. Sometimes, I branch out. Last year, I even rented a Playstation so I could play some Santa-associated shoot 'em up game. It made me feel good, shooting at delirious elves and rabid reindeer. I had to hide it whenever someone came over. But I don't hate Christmas. I revel in it. I actually do have a tree. A very small one, that sits in the corner of my apartment. It is real, but only about three feet tall. It is hung with the delicate glass ornaments you get at specialty shops: handmade and lovingly painted in a recreation of Christmas traditions and ideals. Every year, I buy a new one. This year, I bought a small red stocking, with a cat's head poking out of the top. It is so adorable, that as soon as I saw it, I snatched it up and made my way to the checkout desk at Bombay. But my favorite is not the cat. No, it is the one I got last year. Or rather, the one I received. See, that was my gift. Two small girls, one dressed in blue, the other in pink, holding the same candle and smiling brilliantly. The girl in pink, with her brown hair, had green eyes that had handpainted glitter in them. The child in blue, as I am sure is no coincidence, had blonde hair. A mass of blonde curls tied back with a blue ribbon, and another pair of glittering eyes. When I opened the cardboard box after our harrowing experience with two aging ghosts, I cried. I unwrapped the tissue paper, looked up, and cried. There was a smile on his face, a smile borne of pride and fear. He wanted to make sure I was okay with this, that this wasn't hurting me. I started to bawl then. He reached a hand out to take the girls away, but I set them down on the table and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. And I cried. Today, that ornament hangs proudly near the top of the tree, right next to the orange Pomeranian that Ellen bought me two years ago. It has a green ribbon tied around it's neck and every time I go to hang it on the tree I start to laugh. I think I am assured an ornament from him every year from now on. The loss of loved ones is supposed to make Christmas hard. Yes, there's my "night." But that's all the mourning I need. There are other things that I do, that I allow myself to do to battle the feelings of injustice that well up inside of me. I volunteer at a women's and children's center in the inner city of DC. I help the kids glue macaroni on crosses and trees drawn on multicolored cardboard. I help clean up the women who have been beaten or left in this harsh time. Selfish, I know, but what I am really doing is helping myself, reacquainting myself with the people who still have their children, and learning to accept it. It is hardest for me when I see the woman, who not five minutes ago was telling me her harrowing life story as I washed her hair, cradle her little boy or girl in her arms as the head of the center reads the bible out loud. Sometimes there are children who arrive without a mother, without a relative. And those children sit with me. Usually, they are older, maybe eight or nine. Mostly, they want to have nothing to do with the "little white woman." Most of these kids are black, and have had a rough time of it. I can remember when I was eight; I ran around in the backyard with Charlie and Billy pretending to be an Indian as Mom made lemonade in the kitchen. These kids have probably never played Cowboys and Indians with their siblings. Never run around a huge oak tree as they tied their little brother up. But I am sure that many of them have played the same game that I used to play: the pretending game. Pretend it's not there, and it isn't. For them, it's pretend Mommy isn't getting walloped with a pan. Pretend that Daddy isn't coming home late and slurring his words. Pretend that Mommy isn't sitting in the kitchen with and ice pack and a roach. Pretend that the kid you were best friends with isn't dead from a drug deal gone wrong. It's the all too harsh reality of life in the city. I can only wish for them the existence that I have led. All I had to pretend when I was nine was that Daddy was coming home next week, and that Mommy wasn't on the verge of tears as she spoke to him on the phone. Even though I knew he wasn't, the creation of the story made it real. I was always disappointed when he didn't show up for midnight Mass. But, I sit with those boys and girls, I put my arms around them in a feeble attempt to get back my own lost child. The thing that I pretend over now. I pretend that she's living happily: Emily Simm, somewhere in suburbia with her parents and her puppy. Sometimes I believe it, but not now. I'm too busy believing in these kids and their mothers. It's frightening all the potential that can be wasted with one syringe, with one joint, with one marriage that was never meant to be. But nevermind. Right now, all they want to do is hear about shepherds and wise men, insencse and muhrr. That's all I want to do, too. I want to hear about Jesus and his strength. Make me stronger, Jesus. I started a new Christmas voyage this year. I was driving home from work early, around six. As I was driving past the pediatric hospital, I slowed when I fixed my eyes on the entrance. Finally, I stopped, put the car in reverse, and backed into the parking garage. I convinced the nurse to let me into the neonatal unit. I showed her my badge and somehow she believed that I wasn't going to steal a baby. I'm not sure I believed it, then, as I climbed into the security elevator with another nurse. But I knew I wasn't going to steal a baby as I watched a young couple through the wire-crossed glass. They crouched over an incubator, cooing at their awakening preemie. My eyes filled with tears, but I smiled broadly for the next five minutes. Another baby was wheeled in to the room, I assume from therapy, and the first couple left as another filed in. Suddenly, a sound I thought I would never hear in a hospital filled my ears. Coming from somewhere near the elevator which I arrived on was the sound of healthy children singing carols. Lots of kids. Older kids, though, high school. Singing both traditional carols and some other songs that half the choir seemed to be singing the wrong parts to, especially one kid with spiky hair. There was a girl among them, walking along side the spiky-haired guy, with her folder clenched to her chest and her chin nestled on top of it, singing loudly and in one of the more beautiful voices I have heard to date. But she had no emotion in her voice. She smiled up at the guy next to her as he sang the soprano descant, but soon her face returned to dull and lackluster as they began to sing "Silent Night." After about 10 minutes of circling the central area of the neonatal floor, the director gave them a break. Most of the girls rushed off in a gaggle towards the bathroom, spiky-dude showed his buddies the little blue laser attached to his keychain, and several couples formed right before my eyes. But the girl who I had watched before came over to the window where I stood, black folder still held tightly against her chest, chin still resting on top. Now that I could see her, she was rather pretty, and she looked over to me and smiled. But in that smile, I could see the eyes that I see when I look in the mirror: the pretending eyes. Pretend it isn't there, and it all goes away. I thought, I bet she doesn't let people touch her; I would put my entire life's savings on the table and say that her parents fight, a lot; I can say that she probably takes it, and hides it all inside; She will cry once this year. Probably tonight, if I was right about her. She had well defined features, but she wasn't one of those pretty high school girls you would usually think of, with a blonde ponytail and legs up to her neck. Without those monstrous shoes she's wearing, she was probably still tall, 5'10" maybe. She wasn't skinny, but not fat. She had a curvy body and a small waist that I'm sure a lot of boys go for. But, as I said, she doesn't let people touch her. She peered over at her classmates and I saw a slight twinge in her eyes as she watched one of the couples, a tall boy and a slight, dark haired girl sit together on the couch. Her parents had instilled this in her, much the same way my father made me afraid that a man will leave me, that he won't love me enough to hang around when I really need him. But somewhere under the heavy makeup and dark jewelry, she was still pretty. She looked back at the window, the fright still evident. I think she saw me watching her and she turned towards me. "I hate hospitals." Was all she said at the time, before returning her gaze to the wired window. She placed her hand upon the glass, and I could see that her fingernails were gnawed down, but growing back. Symbolic, I thought at the time. Funny how your mind works on impulse. The director, a boisterous, easy to love woman, called the singers back together. The girl, whose name I learned as a girl called to her as she walked by, Elizabeth, took a deep breath, closing her eyes and lifting her shoulders before walking back to the group. As she moved away from me, though, her shoulders slumped again, her dark head bowed, but her chin never found its way back to the edge of her folder. She joined spiky again as her soprano voice rang clear against the background of the other singers. She gave me a small smile as she walked towards the stairwell, and I could hear her belting "Santa Claus is Coming" in the stairwell. In that moment, I prayed for her, and for myself. I wanted to be like her. To start to put it all behind me. So it's the twenty-second today. As we have finished the mind-numbing paperwork of the day that seems to come near the end of the year, we have nothing to do until one of us gets up the courage to leave. And today, it isn't going to be me. So, I go sit on his desk as he tells me a fairytale of children on Christmas morning. It's supposed to be funny, he's satirizing us, placing us as children, and then detailing the wild gifts we would receive. I would get an alien autopsy kit and a clone detector, and he would get a memory-returner and a collection of good ties. It's supposed to be funny, but I'm not laughing. I don't want a clone detector or an alien autopsy kit. And I know he doesn't want a memory-returner or a collection of tasteful ties. What I want, and what he wants, is the same. To get past it. To learn to live with it and to put it behind us. And so, he gets up the courage to leave, placing a small box in my hand. I open it, and therein I find a small glass ball. Transparent, and inside of it there is a small recreation of the nativity. And I fall to my knees in a gesture I used to think I was pretend. But now I am not pretending anymore. Clutching Mulder's present to my chest, I ask for support, for help in the only way Elizabeth and I know how. Jesus, make me stronger. Jesus, let the latent be revealed. Jesus, make Elizabeth patient. Jesus, make us able and willing to get through this. Thank you, Jesus. All of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking at stars. -Oscar Wilde.
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