Lingering in the past

This year, for reasons absolutely personal and selfish, I am hoping to receive real, paper Christmas cards, Happy Holiday cards, whatever they happen to be called. And, I’d like to explain.

For the past few years whenever a holiday or birthday or other event occurs, I open my computer and there they are! Electronic greeting cards – various shapes, sizes and colors, various messages, from various locations. But ultimately they are, well, electronic and often a little, well, flat – there is the exception from that cousin in Ontario, who will never read this anyway, which is creative, inspired and inspiring, created each year anew by a personal friend of hers, but that is quite exceptional.

Now don’t get me wrong – I love it that people take the time to send me an acknowledgement. I appreciate that they even thought of me given the busy life that most of us live. And I like the messages that always come with them – notes of acknowledgement of relationship which cause me to reflect on my relationship with the person sending the e-card. I always linger for a moment at that point.

But, I must confess, I am 61 now, and that makes me an old fashioned kind of guy. For me there is nothing like the feel of a card, the pleasure of carrying it out to show someone, the joy of returning to enjoy it again and again as it sits on the shelf, or hung from the wall, or dangling in the corner of the room (yes, we do those things here in this house). The pleasure of catching a glimpse of it from the corner of my eye as I move through the room. My great aunt Betty (called GAB as an endearing short form) always sends old fashioned cards and I love them, wait for them, linger with them – and as a result, she is with us all season long.

When I was a kid my dad was a traveling salesman and so had many “friends and connections” and every year at Christmas, our house was filled with the, what I like to call, “cards of connection” – oh, sure, some of them were perfunctory and superficial, complete with a stamped signature from the company or organization which sent them. But always, my father liked to remind me, there was a person behind the stamp who made the decision to send the card, whatever we might think of the stamped signature. I say this only to let you know that I understand where my desire for real, solid, three dimensional cards comes from.

I know it is all very selfish of me – to want my “friends and connections” to take the time to go find a card, hopefully thinking about which one “fits”, write on it (ouch, that requires finding a pen that works), find a stamp (now that can be a challenge) and making one’s way to a mail box to drop it off. No, I am not being sarcastic, I realize that our lives are different now and what used to be a simple act is now much more complex. Heck, I am sure there are people out there who have never used a stamp. That is a reflection of our times, I know. I also realize there are people out there who have no idea how to send an electronic greeting card. The world is like that now.

Now, to further my confession ... I have sent many, many electronic greeting cards myself – and probably will in the future, so there is no criticism here – just a wish: a wish to, for just a moment or two, return to the “way things were”.

Which, of course, brings me to the obligatory Child and Youth Care connection for this editorial – the wish to return to the way things were. To return to the (fantasy?) pre-now condition when one was “happier”, less troubled, more satisfied. And surely we, and most of the people we work with, have that wish, however deep it may be buried.

Most of us think about “old folks” who talk about the “way things were” as locked in the past. But in reality even young people have this thinking. They think about the times when mom was okay, or the parents were together, of all was well. It is a natural human condition to want things be the best they can be – and for many of the young people and their families, this is a draw to the past. Sometimes, unfortunately, the distant past. And for some, I know, it is a draw to a past that never existed.

This is not necessarily bad.

A memory, even if it is a fantasy, can create for many of us, a dream for the future – if we can only be helped to use the past to create our future. And part of our job, I sometimes think, is just that – to use the past to build the future. Not just to build a future in spite of the past, but to use the, often vague and unreal, memories of the past as a stimulus to re-construct whatever future is presently in our sights.

And sometimes, it seems to me, lingering for a moment in the past, when things were “better” (whatever that might mean), can help us to find the strength necessary to build that new future.

But, I dwell. As memories sometimes cause us to do. Lingering in a memory. Mine of a Christmas past when family gathered together, pain set aside for the moment, to enjoy this moment, this moment of family, connectedness and relationship. For I, too, have the (fantasy?) memory of a time of peace. Peace within self.

And so, this year, I hope my friends and connections, choose to send real, paper cards. Just to let me linger for a moment. As children might do, if they are surrounded by people who care.

And I wish the same for you.

Thom