blogger profile

Sarahthequeen05

I am a spunky 25-year-old living in a suburb of Tampa. I was relocated here with my husband of 2 years from western North Carolina when the Air Force decided that we were needed in sunny Florida! I had almost all the best times of my life at Salem College in Winston-Salem, NC, the oldest women's c...

READ MORE

Obligations and Christmas Lists

Sarah Davis-Harwood

There is a large pile of laundry on my bed, waiting to be folded.  Or, rather, I should say, nagging me to fold it, because it’s all I can think about.  But, I am cozy where I am and I am not moving to fold it, yet, because there’s nothing in it that will wrinkle too badly.  I do not often stand up to laundry and this is making me feel just a little bit badass.

So, I’m being selfish and just a teensy bit lazy and rebellious and I’m thinking about what I want for Christmas.  It’s to the point where my parents and Hubby are asking me often, and I haven’t come up with anything.  I’ve already started buying little things, stocking stuffers and other things I can’t mention in detail because people reading this might be on the receiving end of something I’ve bought, so you might say I’m a hypocrite.  In fact, it’s ok to say I’m a Christmas Gift Hypocrite (CGH)- I’ve admitted it and they say that’s the first step to recovery. 

I’ve started asking Hubby, too, what he wants for Christmas, which is always a chore- like asking him what he wants for his birthday or one of our anniversaries.  He always says the same thing, “nothing”, thinking that if he tells me this that I will give up and not spend money on him and he’d really be happier that way.  (Or so he tells me, but I don’t completely believe him.) 

After more than two years, he is coming to realize that he married a very stubborn woman, a woman who threatens him with, “Look, buster, you may as well tell me something that you want and/or need for your birthday/Christmas/anniversary because I’m going to buy you presents anyway, and you may as well have a say in what they are”.  I did, however, give up on his birthday this year because a) I’m not up to a lot of shopping right now and b) I’d just become unemployed 3 days before. 

But, since he wouldn’t tell me what he wanted for a birthday present, I got him a bunch of greeting cards, one for each day for a week, counting down to his birthday.  I tend to do this with a lot of holidays because I love buying greeting cards and they are one of the few things that I can buy him that he won’t bitch about. Not that he isn’t appreciative of gifts he receives, he’s just self-conscious of receiving gifts and feels bad that people spend money on him- don’t know why and I’ve asked so I just go with it and force gifts upon him.   

I’ll probably buy him a wallet this year, because I’ve gotten him one for the past 3 Christmases- the man is rough on his wallets.  He loves this because it’s something that he truly does need; he doesn’t care that there’s no mystery, no magic to it, doesn’t care that he knows he’s pretty much guaranteed a wallet.  Other than that, I have no effing clue what I’ll be getting him for Christmas.

I guess I could get him a gift card for Auto Zone since he’s there all the time, but it’s really strange buying a gift card for someone you share money with.  It’s like taking money out of their account and handing it right back to them.  (And along these same lines, it also is strange and hurts my brain to think about Hubby getting paid with our own income taxes, but I won’t go there in this blog- too confusing.)

So, all of that was just building up to this:

What I Really Want for Christmas

-To stop worrying that my cancer will come back or that I’ll get a different type of cancer as the result of my chemo decades down the road (this is the one thing I REALLLLLY want, what you might equate to your “big gift” from childhood- the bicycle or the Minnie Mouse play kitchen)

-To stop worrying about being unemployed and never getting a job (especially in our crappy economy) and becoming one of those families that lives solely on a military salary (a large majority of which, according to statistics, are food-stamp eligible)

-To keep my remaining eyelashes as I am quite fond of them and need something to put my sultry black mascara on other than my eyelids (which is not attractive AT ALL)

-To make it through my 4 remaining chemo appointments without too much nausea and fatigue, although just asking for it makes me sound like a weenie

That’s about it, really.  It’s hard to focus on wanting some frou-frou bath stuff or jewelry or new clothes when I can’t be guaranteed any of the above.  I hope that doesn’t sound depressing, because I didn’t mean for it to be that way.  It’s just the truth.  I will make a regular Christmas list, because I need new jeans that fit and I never turn down frou-frou bath stuff or jewelry.