Life is messy ….
Not neat little boxes like AI and social media would have us believe
Christmas is coming alongside the pressure to deliver the perfection. I will put my hands up and say I am a Christmas curmudgeon now. Although, I felt the pressures of Christmas for years, until I realised our Christmas never going be perfection they were noisy, messy and chaotic but fun.
The lack of perfection in my life does lead me onto the point of this post, life being messy, something I have learnt as I grow old. Christmas is the classic example highlighting my points. At this time of year the pressure builds, your browsing and TV - I'm old I still watch terrestrial TV - is interrupted with images of the must have food, party clothes etc. You are bombarded with advice to start planning your food, your presents, your Christmas tree in August. Children are bombarded with the must have Christmas items clothes, toys, trips out - the most expensive of course. Who should you invite and when? Not Auntie Agnes with Aunt Mable because they fell out fifty years ago over the bone china tea service Granny left. Cousin Hugo had an affair with Frankie and is now married to Sally so you mustn’t ask cousin Albert and Frankie with them and so it goes on.
Real life Christmases are not the perfect AI or social media picture. We are messy, in my case literally and metaphorically. Planning goes so far but has its draw backs, firstly it can be stressful when you work full time, have 1/2/3/10 children of any ages. There myriad of other things to plan not just at Christmas. As I am retired with time on my hands logic says I should plan, cook, prepare and deliver the perfect Christmas. I know the history of Hugo and Frankie’s affair and how Auntie Agnes let Aunt Mable have the tea service only after she’s smashed every tea cup. I am sure I am not alone in saying I do not have the energy for Christmas anymore, nor does it hold the excitement of being or having children/grandchildren. As an old curmudgeon I remember the mess it leaves behind, the paper, broken toys, weeks of left over turkey, the hangovers and the financial mess it can create for the rest of the year. I loved Christmas, but that is past now.
Before I move on from Christmas a genuine question for any men reading this post. Do you feel the same pressures around Christmas?
I got sidetracked by Christmas because the rabbit 🐇 dragged me down that warren with the offer of mulled wine, unfortunately the dirty carrot ruined the taste.
Life has the potential to be messy all year and across our lives at any stage, mainly because life is unpredictable. Planning is a positive activity unless the plans and the perception of perfection becomes all encompassing. Death is the prime example, we never know when it may happen to us or to those we love. Even though it is a certainty, we all die and will all experience the death, or loss of someone we love. Yet we do not have death dates.
I believe 100% in planning for those left behind in relation to the practicalities and talking about death, see my post Talking About Death. I cannot plan for the emotions and fall out those I love will experience with my death. The resulting grief is extremely messy, with no fixed trajectory and we all experience grief in our own way. The resulting changes in your life following a death are unpredictable and sometimes traumatic.
The biggest recent example of life being messy is the COVID lockdowns with its global impacts. Sometimes it feels it happened around the time Auntie Agnes smashed the tea cups, yet it was only 4 years ago. All our lives have been changed and impacted by that period in so many different ways, good and bad. Children still suffer the fall out from disrupted education, the reliance on screens for social interaction, struggling with communication and the ability to look each other in the eye and talk. The easy access to social media content often created the impression of everyone else’s perfect worlds. Social media portrays the world behind filters. The young girl with every blemish filtered out and cheek bones manipulated. The perfect picture of the creaking dinner table full of beautifully cooked food doesn't show the state of the kitchen or the mound of smashed cardboard under the table used to transport the food or the smell of the rotting meat. A bit if literary licence there, but you get the drift.
We are all affected by those pictures of perfection, or pictures that portray our perception of perfection. I know some of you maybe saying not me I can't stand those pictures of pumped up old faces without a wrinkle, I don't want a luxury cruise, the latest fashion. I prefer the pictures of people like Helen Mirren and think she’s aged so well and wish I had. Helen Mirren has all the money she needs to buy all the creams, take breaks on luxurious holidays, buy the best spa membership, pay for the help to reduce stress, staff to do the cleaning etc. Please don't think I am knocking her, I would do exactly the same, she says with green eyes. I admire her, and Judi Dench but understand their lives allow then certain luxuries. But I bet their lives can be messy - possibly not as literally as mine. We all have ideals, ifvee are honest with ourselves.
What is the point of all this rambling? Life is messy because life gets in the way. The perfect Christmas table is perfect until you see the dog running away down the garden with the turkey leaving devastation on the perfect table. The perfect family dinner is perfect until the older teenage sister presses her younger brother’s button because she is bored and world war 3 breaks out. The perfect living room is perfect until the 9 month old labrador puppy gets gastroenteritis and does a Freddie Kruger impression across the whole floor with blood and you know what.
Planning is a good thing but you never be too rigid in your plans, anything can happen to divert your route. Don't believe people who tell you their family is perfect. If their home looks something straight out of Homes & Gardens, they may have help, rubbish is stuffed in the shed or at the end if the day on their own the admit they are exhausted. If they never have a hair out of place they maybe using super glue or have an invisible helper. I am no different to anyone else and can be seduced by the portrayal of perfection and get frustrated that everything about me is messy from my looks & home, to my planning and if I'm honest to my life in general. Remember the old saying if it looks too good.. applies to many areas of our lives.
Prompts
These are not meant to be easy and try and be as honest with yourself as you possibly can be.
Have you ever looked at a picture of perfection and thought I wish I could have that, look like, or live like that? Imagine yourself being in that way
What can you see behind that picture that makes you realise life is never perfect.
List the best ten messy things in your life and describe what you love about them
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Because we lived far away from Family, once we had a child, I did feel the pressure to create rituals that made the holiday exciting for me, who was an only child as she was, and this meant I incorporated the fun memories of my own childhood. A live Christmas tree that we decorated with lights and ornaments. Christmas music on, stockings on fireplace opened first thing before breakfast...which was home made cinnamon rolls using my mother's recipe that required me to make dough the night before, then get up early, make the rolls early enough for second rise and pop in oven. And I do think we did make good memories for her...including the year we discovered a small frog in the tree.
But there were lots of years once she left home where xmas was difficult, and I tended to find sad. Then as she had her own children, we did get to spend the holiday with them, helping as she tried to recreate the magic under much more difficult circumstances than we faced. And now, after covid and age-related problems have made traveling difficult, we are back to face timing briefly as the grandsons open presents (and we open a few they have sent us) and going back to a delightfully quiet day.
I realised how much we’ve become blinded by the perfection we’re fed via social media while on holiday this summer. We were at a waterpark in Italy and that particular scenario is a great leveller... Nowhere in the sea of people, in all manner of swim attire was there perfection. And this was Italy too - supposedly the chicest, stylish of places. I realised how perfection isn’t real, but filters are very much so! It was very, very messy indeed - and we fitted in wonderfully 😂