The Real McCoy

This Christmas was pretty perfect, and I would have to say that had a lot to do with the presence (or presents?) of the Martins. You know there's just something about having the whole family dynamic that makes everything feel complete. It's not often we can all be together and just... be. We closed out the night just chillin' and talking in the living room while my mother was about to pass out from exhaustion as she waited for Amanda to finish her movie so that she could put her to bed. Chillin' and talking is my favorite thing ever. Ever. It's so hard to pull out of it, because it really is just sort of happening because it's happening... and then you realize it's happening because it's so necessary. All parties in such a conversation find common ground and run with it, and it feels so right.

At one point in our conversation, we got to talking about love languages. As usual, it was pointed out by someone that mine is most definitely physical touch. This always brings me back to the day that strange woman came to 5Alive and covered all 5 love languages. Once she said "physical touch," all eyes were on me. Now, that was pretty funny, but ever since then I've thought how strange it was that I am the only one whose love can be straight up identified that way.

Obviously, I experience love outside of physical touch. I would be a lonely soul otherwise... or I would have resigned myself to prostitution straight out of high school (Too far?). So I got to thinking about the other languages, and I can see where I've learned how to love people in different ways and do. This brought me to the flip side. How do I receive love? See, I've told some that even though I am classified under physical touch, I most often like to initiate the hug or cuddle or whatever. I sometimes have a hard time receiving it. And then I got to thinking about how bad I am at receiving gifts... and how bad I am at receiving words of affirmation... and my general lack of enthusiasm in gratitude that has plagued me since being classified as an "ungrateful child" long ago.

(These were the thoughts that were in my mind before I rolled out of bed and decided to come down here and start typing all of this out.)

My immediate reaction to this sudden connection of pieces was: "Oh, another realization of just how extremely selfish I am." Upon further inspection I realized a deeper root to this issue, a root that could quite possibly be familial, is that I always want everything to be right, true, and genuine.

Not such a bad desire, huh? After all, shouldn't things of life be right, true, and genuine? Yeah, I'd say so. But one truth that keeps laughing in my face is the relativity hidden within these staunch terms. I have a hard time receiving gifts. Why? Probably because of the social conventions marked by gift-giving. Once my mind decides something is conventional, it gets tossed into an ingenuine category. Appreciation is lost. Why can't I accept words of affirmation? Probably because I can't know whether it's really what is right that is being affirmed. Does that make sense? Kinda?

What I'm getting at is that my natural tendency is to decide whether I see something as real or a pursuit of what's real and reject whatever I deem not in these ranks. Feign enthusiasm when enthusiasm is not a real emotion for me at the time. Offer an awkward thanks when I don't really know how to react to what you said. So what am I saying about the person who was genuinely excited about giving me that gift or about the person who identifies something in me that he or she firmly believes should be affirmed?

......

.............

Boo, Katie Jones. Boo.

Enough of that. Carrie called this morning to tell us that the long search for Chris's brother's body had been stopped. I'm sure Chris is over there, "feigning" the joy and excitement of Christmas with his three darling children, but that's okay. Because he really truly does love them. Because there really is nothing fake about love, no matter how you want to categorize it.