Nothing Says “Holiday Cheer” Like a Menacing Tree and Unresolved Childhood Issues
We finally managed to get the tree up and standing, but not without a struggle. Last Sunday, we started decorating and were almost finished when the weight of the ornaments caused it to tip. We both managed to catch it before it went over completely, but it was a very close call.
When we first got together, most of our ornaments were the standard fragile glass balls that most folks have. We began collecting Hallmark ornaments and other fun ones like Fisher Price pieces, Wizard of Oz characters, parrots, many of which are resin rather than traditional balls. We also picked up several beautiful ornaments from the flagship Yankee Candle store in Massachusetts. After years of not having a tree topper, we finally got one this year. We originally looked for an Abominable Snow Monster, but none of the ones we found looked quite right, so we ended up choosing a rather angelic-looking dog instead. We got him because he looked a bit like Brodie. Isn't he adorable?
Despite a few threatening moments since then, the tree has stayed upright all week. I finally resorted to putting a nail in the wall and tying it off and that tree is staying put. At least for now.
As I mentioned in my last blog, I’m feeling good and fairly happy but I can feel the melancholy warming up in the bullpen. Being an orphan at Christmas is tricky enough; being an orphan and childless is basically the holiday version of a double dog dare from the universe. We do our best to compensate with a rotating cast of nieces and nephews, plus one overachieving niece who has thoughtfully supplied us with a great-niece or nephew every decade like clockwork. There is always a child present at the holidays, which is important if only to remind us what toys sound like when they’re being destroyed in real time.
Still, at Christmas I miss my parents, especially my dad. I miss being a kid. I miss my much, much older brothers and sisters and their spouses cramming into the house, filling every room with laughter, noise, and opinions. No matter what chaos was brewing beneath the surface, our house was loud and joyful at the holidays. Even that year. You know…the year my parents were in full “I’m never speaking to you again unless you grovel” mode. They didn’t speak for at least two weeks before Christmas. I was nine or ten, all my siblings had already escaped home, and I was left alone with bothparents. Both. Angry. Parents.
My dad refused to decorate that year. No tree. No lights. No trains. No Christmas spirit whatsoever. Completely A-typical of my Dad. Then, Christmas Eve morning they made up, and my dad proceeded to lose his mind decorating the entire house like Christmas had personally insulted him. He ran himself ragged putting up decorations, prepping the Christmas Eve spread, and getting ready for the Christmas Day feast. My mother, of course, ran herself ragged instructing him on what to do. Whatever they were fighting about must have been epic, because it took two full weeks and one holiday miracle to resolve.
Now, as difficult as my mother could be (“difficult” being polite code for bat-shit crazy) and my dad had his own special brand of dysfunction. He would swallow his anger until something menial set him off, at which point he would inform you of what exactly your great sin was and then not speak to you for a completely arbitrary amount of time. Once, I accidentally tossed a wet washcloth onto the laundry hamper without realizing his dress shirts were on top. (As an aside, is that REALLY the best place to put dress shirts just back from the dry cleaner?) He didn’t speak to me for ten days. Ten. I apologized immediately…I even cried, which I generally didn’t do much of back then. Of course, these days I cry at literally everything. Crying didn’t matter…he just walked away. Then one day—poof—he started talking to me again like nothing had happened. No debrief. No lesson. Just vibes.
Years later, at nineteen, I finally got my revenge. I was going out one night, and my sister Kathy was coming over with her eight year old daughter, Shavon. I gave my dad very clear instructions: my cockatiels were loose in my room, do not let Shavon in there, and make sure the sliding glass doors are locked. Naturally, he opened the sliding door. Naturally, he opened my bedroom door. Naturally, one of my hand-raised baby cockatiels escaped. I didn’t speak to him for a week. By day seven, I was cracking. I was over it. I was ready to give in. And that’s when he came into my room and practically begged for forgiveness. That was a side of my dad I rarely saw back then. He could outlast anyone in those silent wars. Seeing him cave was shocking. He was so stubborn…and stoic. He rarely showed emotion, he rarely showed weakness. He rarely said “I love you”…but he would show it…in different ways. Later on, when we were both older…I couldn’t stop him from saying “I love you”…every time I’d walk in the door…I think he was making up for all those years without them.
I forgave him. We hugged it out. I think that was the last real fight we ever had. We both softened after that. Of course, years later I found out he took the blame for Shavon…who had actually opened the sliding door and my bedroom door. That was my dad in a nutshell. Quietly ethical. Protective. Willing to take the hit without saying a word. That’s the side everyone saw and the side we all opt to remember. The good man. The noble guy. You needed money? His wallet came out. You needed a ride? He’d take you anywhere. You needed a place to stay? His door was open. He once drove to New Jersey to pick up my sister Janine and I and our friends when a Springsteen concert was cancelled due to rain. That’s real love…driving from Howard Beach, Queens to the Meadowlands in a massive Springsteen traffic jam.
That’s why Christmas still gets me. Because the house isn’t loud…but it was once. And for a long time, it was full of love, laughter, and just enough dysfunction to make the memories stick. I try to resist glossy sentimentality and lean toward something truer. My family was imperfect…capable of cruelty, sharpness, and harm…but also generous, principled, and deeply funny. Sometimes we could even be compassionate. We were human in every sense, imperfection at its finest.
Anyway…enough wallowing. I’m sitting at my kitchen table listening to Brenda Lee sing “A Marshmallow World,” and honestly, how bad can things be? Sure, Rob Reiner is dead, the Senate is nudging the retirement age toward “never,” the planet is actively combusting, and most of the people I love are gone…but there are presents to buy, my dog needs a new Christmas bow tie because he’s gotten fat over the past decade (who hasn’t?) and we just added a chocolate factory to our village. Civilization may collapse, but the village is thriving!
I’ve always been good at finding the good in things and situations, mostly because the alternative is screaming into the abyss. An ex used to call me a “sunshine blower”…which I find a bit offensive. But really how is anyone sane right now? Mass murder on Bondi Beach. Millions of Americans losing healthcare. We’re casually bombing Venezuela and Syria. Velveeta’s administration is deeplyoffended after Vanity Fair exposed Karoline Leavitt’s suspiciously inflated lips with what they call “questionable evidence”…a photograph. But, but! Credit where it’s due. The pumpkin spiced Stalin did one good thing this decade, he reclassified marijuana as a Class III drug. Progress arrives quietly, wrapped in a gummy. I enjoy a marijuana gummy on a Friday night after work or a Saturday evening after errands, purely recreational, purely legal. I’ll sit on the couch while Annie vanishes into another room to wage war on the PlayStation, and I wait. Twenty minutes later I’m giggly, soft around the edges, and blissfully unconcerned with global collapse…and perhaps a bit stupid. An hour or two after that, I fall asleep. It’s bliss.
Sometimes, my brain can go off into apocalypse planning. What if I lose my job? Well then we lose the house, obviously. Then we’re homeless. Where do we go with all these animals? The dog would adapt. As long as he has Annie, he would be perfectly fine living anywhere. The cat was feral anyway. But the birds? You can’t just travel the streets with a supermarket wagon and 6 parrots. Who could take Monkey? Dakota? I can’t even let them go as they can’t fly. Eventually we’re living in a box under the train tracks, emotionally crushed, surrounded by non-releasable wildlife. Luckily, when I’m high, I can’t sustain a single thought long enough. My brain turns to pudding. That’s the key difference between pot and alcohol. Pot makes you happy, loving and dumb. Alcohol makes you happy momentarily and then…if you blink wrong…angry, obnoxious and a know-it-all. Okay, I’m really talking about my wife there, but I digress. At this age I choose gummies.
I also had my year-end review at work since my last blog, and it went well. I assume my boss decided, “Probably not the year to nitpick the employee with cancer.” Not that he ever would, but he is OCD and sometimes can drive me crazy. He’s been happy with my performance ever since he bought out his partner about two and a half years ago. The three months after I found out about the cancer were…not my most focused. I was scattered, distracted, and operating at what I’d generously call partial brain capacity. Fortunately, that mostly resolved itself even before radiation. These days I feel clearheaded at work again, which is kind of important for, you know, doing my job.
Reading my BC board has helped me stay grounded through all of this. The more stories I read, the more I realize that my situation isn’t as bad as it could be. But that realization brings guilt with it. I feel guilty for not having severe side effects, for not having a more aggressive type of cancer, for having better access to good treatment centers. I’ve always lived with a deep sense of guilt. I feel guilty for not being the one who could save my family (thanks Janine), and for the abuse my brother experienced (before I was even born). I carry a constant sense of responsibility, even for things that were never within my control. Hmmm. I think I may have a serious guilt complex?
Back to writing this Christmas Day. I had my tests on Monday. One of the worst blood tests I’ve had since I was traumatized at 17 by a blood mobile.
I was 17, a senior in high school, sitting in my bioethics class with my favorite teacher, Mrs. Deering. I’d had her before…freshman year for Physical Science…when my mom died just three days into my high school “career.” That first semester, I earned a D in her class, and she caught my dad on report card day to tell him that I wasn’t stupid, but clearly wasn’t applying myself. My dad stared at her, stunned, and said, “Lady, her mother just died in September.” Mrs. Deering hadn’t known. The next class we had, she came over to me and said, “Why didn’t you say something? I had no idea. I wouldn’t have given you a D.” Fourteen-year-old me just shrugged. To me, I felt like I shouldn’t make an excuse. Just me being tough and stupidly noble.
Regardless, Mrs. Deering was an exceptional teacher. She could make any topic interesting, was patient and genuinely caring, and had a sharp sense of humor when the moment allowed. She also didn’t take crap from anyone. I had a deep respect for her. One day in Bioethics, we were discussing euthanasia, the pros and cons of legalizing it when she mentioned that a bloodmobile was at the school. The thought of a needle in my vein has always made me queasy. I liked to think of myself as tough, and the idea of donating blood, of someone seeing me panic or chicken out, especially back then was absolutely not happening. Mrs. D asked how many of us planned to donate. A few hands went up. Mine did not. She looked directly at me and asked why. I mumbled some excuse, and she said, “I’m surprised you wouldn’t make the time. After your mom died, you should understand the lifesaving value of blood donation.” Oh, the nerve. Publicly calling me out. But she wasn’t wrong. I’d always felt guilty about not donating blood. My dad would faithfully go every month, and every time I saw the Band-Aid on his arm, I felt like I was failing at being a decent human being.
I go to the blood mobile during lunch. I climb inside and a woman directs me to a bed against the wall. It’s surprisingly roomy, two beds in the front, two in the back, and a tiny waiting area in the middle where you can sit and drink orange juice and eat cookies. She tells me to lie down, tells me to make a fist, and starts tapping around, searching for a good vein. I turn my head toward the window. I’m sweating bullets. I feel sick. I can feel the strength draining out of my body. Then she sticks me and it freaking hurts. She keeps tapping and moving the needle around, and I can actually feel the metal shifting inside my arm. I feel even sicker. She says she missed the vein, pulls the needle out, then jams it back in. Being the good German that I am, I squirm but suppress the overwhelming urge to strangle her. She does this a couple of more times before saying, “Oh, I’m sorry. I haven’t done this in a long time. Let me get a torniquet and try the other arm.” That’s when I finally speak up and say no…absolutely not…I’m done. When I look at the crook of my arm, I have a massive blood blister, about three inches in diameter. I wobble over the snack area and she tells me to sit. I was on the verge of passing out. Not because of blood loss, but because of the panic and fear coursing through my needle resistant veins. Ever since then, I’ve been terrified of having my blood drawn. There aren’t many things that terrify me…roaches…and blood draws.
So this past Monday, I go to MSK for a blood draw and a bone scan. The blood draw is a horror show. Probably the first bad experience since that awful high school bloody nightmare. I’ve had many blood draws since high school…and I’ve gone to each of them terrified and each time the nurses are wonderful and patient…it barely hurts and I feel ridiculous afterwards.
She starts with the crook of my elbow. Over the past two years, I’ve been trying to conquer different parts of my blood-draw fear, and this spot is one of the biggest. I tell myself, Okay, Taylor, you can do this. It’s just a pinch. No big deal. She inserts the needle, and honestly it’s fine. It’s barely a pinch. But then she starts moving the needle around, which makes me queasy…and no blood. She pulls it out and starts searching for another vein. I’m annoyed because I drank two cups of coffee and an entire Stanley water bottle on the way to Harrison just to be well hydrated for this. She finds a vein on my forearm. My forearm! Never in my life have I had a needle in my forearm. She sticks me, and I feel the cool metal pierce my skin. I shudder. I can feel myself turning green. More tapping. More flicking of the needle. I sneak a peek and catch a glimpse…crap, why did I do that??? Still no blood flowing into the tube. Dammit. She pulls the needle out again. Do I tell her to stop because I still have a bone scan to get to? No. I let her hunt for yet another vein. She flips my arm over and inspects the pale, soft skin between my wrist and elbow. She finds another victim and inserts the needle without saying a word. I’m thinking, I’m done. If this doesn’t flow like Old Faithful, I’m out. I can’t play pincushion anymore. I’m dead inside. She taps the needle again…why do they do that? I know why, but it freaks me out, and I’m cowardly enough now to admit it. Then she says, “Well, it’s coming slowly, but we’re getting some.”
I’m elated. Thank goodness. Then she adds, “Hopefully we got enough,” and pulls the needle out. I could kiss her. She doesn’t deserve it…I’ve been stuck three times, including once in the freaking forearm…but I’m just so happy it’s over. I leave the blood room and check in for my scan.
To put it in perspective, over the years I’ve had plenty of injuries, but nothing truly serious and I’ve always handled them with complete calm. Once, a cockatoo nearly took my ring finger off. I simply grabbed a paper towel, walked over to my girlfriend, and said, “I think I may have a problem.” Another time, I accidentally pushed my metal camera through an electric fence I didn’t realize was live. The shock launched me about eight feet backward. I stood up, checked to see if anyone had witnessed it, and walked away calmly…very cool, like that was exactly how I intended it to go. On another occasion, a large metal ramp collapsed on my arm at the back of a U-Haul, trapping me. I calmly called Annie and said, “Babe, I’m stuck.” We thought my arm was broken but it wasn’t and she was able to eventually lift it and get my arm out. Again, I stayed perfectly calm. But I digress.
The bone scan, I figured would be easy, unless they plan to stick needles in my veins to check my bone density. Thankfully, no. It’s basically a long X-ray of a few body parts: vertebrae, neck, hip, and left radius. My bone density comes back fine, so no worries. I can go on my AIs next month…for the rest of my life. That part still makes me pause. Almost all the women on my breast cancer board are on them for five to ten years, but Dr. Deng told me the rest of my life. I’ll have to ask about that at my next appointment in mid-January.
Again, thanks for listening and taking this journey with me. I hope everyone has a wonderful and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Source: Nothing Says “Holiday Cheer” Like a Menacing Tree and Unresolved Childhood Issues
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