Boxing day and my decaversary was yesterday.
Boxes and I am thinking of a conversation with my father. "Most people have built an idea of the world and try to ignore anything that doesn't fit their idea. They are afraid of anything that doesn't fit in the box they have made."
That is a very interesting and very weird idea that I am still thinking about. The current US candidates for election seem to each have their "box" and some of them seem so detached from reality that it amazes me. And then no one seems to care about whether facts are involved or not. I attempted to read a "health" book last year that had little boxes in color on many pages, titled "factoid". Ok, what the hell is a "factoid"? Something that resembles a fact? Is that insane or am I out of step with the rest of the US? Yes to both.....
My daughter said, "I can understand the appeal of having a book that tells you what to do and how to live. Science is difficult and uncomfortable because it keeps coming up with new theories so you are aware that some part of it is always wrong. However, I can't go with the book." This was at about age 10, after a sermon at our Unitarian Church.
I am thinking of family that this year has not sent me Christmas cards, does not "like" anything that I put on Facebook (though they wished my son happy birthday), and have stopped contacting me. I wonder if it is because I told a cousin that I am not ok with gossip behind my back about my father's will, or if it because of a story about my sister, or if it is because I asked to be taken off the rarely used "cousin" email list, or if it is because I went to the family lake after these family members, deliberately going alone..... or all of them. In the end, I think that I have been given a role in a story and it does not matter what I say or do: I am assigned the role whether I like it or not and whether the story is true or half-true or really is not in touch with reality at all. And I am assigned the role of the villain. I can name the villains in my parents' generation and in my grandparents in my maternal family. How interesting that my maternal family has to have villains named and treated horridly within the family. Their shadow projection. Protesting doesn't work. Walking away doesn't work. I just wait.... time may change things as memory files are pulled and altered to suit changing circumstances. If I don't cooperate with my role, they may have to choose a second villain. Poor bugger.
The story is part of the box. I said to my sister, "Why do the cousins get so mad at me?" She said, "You don't follow the family rules." I said, "I think the family rules are stupid." She said, "Yes, but I play along when I am with them, so they like me." "I just don't want to," I said. "That's why they like me and not you." she said.