Emotional Heirlooms

Howdy, ya'll. Holiday time is upon us, and I want to remind everyone to look for positive triggers, perhaps even consciously create new traditions that are totally yours and yours alone.

My husband and I are doing the tree farm thing with our kids this year. He was raised in a religion that did not observe any holidays, no birthdays, no Christmas, etc. (LAME)

My mother left me when I was 26 moths old. She wanted to pursue her own interests which at the time were a rock band. I was raised by a father who never held a job down, mooched off his parents, who enabled him in every way. He began molesting me as a baby, about one and a half. He eventually kidnapped and raped me in a motel room in New Orleans.

My mother was supposed to come to meet us there, she never came. His family chose denial and I chose emancipation, so I waved bye bye to that freak show for good in 2004. I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. We likes to get down in Nola. Naturally, I have always loved holidays. Just inherently love celebratory energy. Any opportunity to shake what I got, I shall! Like right now, James Brown is playing, he's singing about his soulful Christmas tree and grooving at Christmas time, and I can barely sit here to type because my ass just wants to shake itself....but I digress.

Troy, my hubs, and the kids and moi were driving the other day, discussing ornaments, the passing of legacies to our children, what if any legacy we have yet to obliterate from our respective childhoods. Most were in need of total annihilation! As we were talking, I said,
"you know, what about emotional heirlooms?" He said, "Oh my god, write about it!"
That's what it's like...we pass down the ornaments, silver, the plates, even the the dysfunction because it seems easier than actually changing things, we pass down habits, idiosyncrasies.

But, I think of what we are leaving our children as more than a legacy. Legacies are a little intangible. What emotional heirlooms will we pass to them? Literally, for each moment in life, what are we passing? What crystallized moments, whether joyous or painful, will we give them to hold? Will we remember that those very heirlooms are going directly to our grandchildren as well? My parents and grandparents on both sides never thought past themselves. Ever.
This has to be done very deliberately. This year, our positive triggers are the tree farm, side-of-the-road apple cider, and lots of groovy Christmas music. Now, the tree farm thing is essential, as I have much trauma surrounding the holidays.

I am creating future triggers, or memories, that will eventually pass into being emotional heirlooms for us and our babies, and their babies too..Screw Santa's list, I have made a list from my childhood, what was good, what was not. When I was little, Christmas was pretty good considering the context, at my dad's folks. I always missed my mother terribly and felt lonesome for that maternal love. I always feared my father's mercurial moods at Christmas. I feared his father for the same reason. Even at my grandparents, it was often like walking on glass. It was up to me to push for the tree, the lights, the merriment. If I had not been so determined to celebrate, I am quite sure no one would have done it. Many of the traditions once held dear in my family unraveled with the years of escalating abuse. It was not very safe to feel merry, for I always knew any merriment was a precursor to violence. Still, I stayed up all night decorating that tree, giving my soul room to be expressed.Yet in the midst of it all I stayed up all night decorating the tree. I loved doing it, me awake with all the animals.

I look at my babes today, and they have a brand new world, a mother who would rather die a slow painful death than abandon them, a father who is healthy, kind, sensitive, a love like no love I ever knew on Christmas and every other day. I am giving myself all things new as well. New heirlooms. New feelings, letting the joy in, relishing it, allowing my heart to be porous so that I may soak it all in. The joy that my children feel becomes my own. . When I see my children happy, free, and safe, I celebrate that with a deep smile, taking the moment home into my heart, and thanking the universe for this life. As we do this in our new family, we heal the children we once were as well, so everyone benefits. Instead of being angry or bitter because we were cheated, we choose to celebrate, and the taste is ever sweeter because of our respective histories.

Here's to new and healthy emotional heirlooms. We may not be able to hang those from a tree, or place them upon a mantle to look at, but they will live forever in the hearts of our children.