Parallels

It’s been a few days since I’ve written, swept up and in the holiday flow. The weekend went quickly and was full of opportunities to re-connect with family and friends, old and new. This is always an exhilarating time of the year. Not sure the word I am looking for, something that means a mixture of fun, exciting, nerve-wracking, and exhausting. Extremes. Not sure why it feels so extreme… cultural expectations, familial expectations, my own expectations, my own soul telling me not to give a crap about any expectations and just take it easy. This is all a part of the process it seems. 

For the past few Christmas’ my family and I have been spending the evening of the 25th with another family who has been friendly with us for many years now. My parents went to school with the mother’s older brother who lived in a neighboring town. They know many of the same people and then began to attend the same church many years ago. Over time our mothers became closer and me and my other sister began babysitting for her kids. They are a powerful, spunky bunch, and we always had a lot of fun. My family grew up with a beach house down by Long Beach Island and we would invite them to spend time down there with us. By that time I was already in high school and working for most of the summer, and occasionally would coincide with them on the weekends. (Though, to be honest, as a kid and teenager I tended to seclude myself in reading, listening to music, writing, exploring nature, etc, it is not until recently that I’ve started to enjoy and tend towards community and closeness. That’s a story for another day though.) Then we eventually ended up traveling to Mexico on service trips with them. So all of this is just a background to getting us to the point of where we are today, which is, spending Christmas with each other. 

We (or just me?) tend to see them as this family that has so much of their sh** together, who are creative, and powerful, and kicking butt. I then hear them tell me stories and realize that they have just as much stuff going on as my own family. There are also SO many parallels that I notice in the energies of the individuals in our families. Let me explain, the mother has the same name as me, Lauren, she was my first yoga teacher EVER, she introduced me to crystals, we were wearing the same outfit last night, we have the same phone case, we have the same ring tone, and last night she started to share some similar experiences that I have also been through (she had never told me before though I had shared with her!). She told me about a woman in her life that she, although not having spent much time together in person, has kept in touch with for many, many years. The reason being that they appear to have parallel lives or experiences and this is helpful and enjoyable for the both of them.

I then realized, I think we do, too! And then I began to look for connections, and you know what happens when I look for connections… I find them EVERYWHERE… because that’s where they are, ev-er-y-where. I began to think about the individuals in their family and how they parallel the individuals in ours, their experiences and how they parallel ours, their hopes, dreams, and challenges and how they parallel ours. This is what brings us together. This is why we spend such an important day together. Because they remind us of our ourselves. We laugh, we talk, we drink, we eat (a lot!), and we occasionally sing & dance (more to come, I’m sure!). We just have fun. We enjoy each other. And what I recognized last night, the thing I always forget and return to, is that they are awesome, which means we must be awesome, too :) The math! I always come back around to that, it’s so easy to forget, it’s so easy to slip into the thinking of, what I do doesn’t really matter. I’m not sure why that is so easy to slip into, but the fact is that it is. And it is absolutely UNTRUE. What I say matters, what I do matters, me being here at this moment matters. Me being at Christmas with my whole family plus us being with another whole family is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Such a special moment. Tradition. It has now become what we look forward to, and I hope we continue on with the Christmas Gathering. We can step back from being engulfed in our immediate family’s challenges and enjoy each other, see ourselves in them and appreciate all of it. Spending time with them is a reminder for me. These are the moments that bring me back, that remind me of the parallels that exist all around, that remind me of the connections that have brought me here and that everything, EVERYTHING, is a miracle. Thank you all for being in my life and for making this happen, year after year.

#cometogether #youaremeiamyou #newjersey #VBS #stteresa #babysitter #travel #iztapalapa #history #family #tradition #magiceverywhere #itsallhappening #forreal #itoldyouso #itsathing