Festivities

This was my first Thanksgiving not spent with family. In retrospect, it is really one of the first Thanksgivings that I even had a choice. Most of my friends were married young, they live near their families and holidays were not a time to spend with friends. So, it was really amazing to have a group of friends to share a traditional Thanksgiving meal with this holiday. There was so much difference at the table that wasn't filled with conflict or drama, but instead inspired curiosity and laughter. Different family traditions, different cultures, different stories, and I still got to sit in front of the TV with a full belly to watch a post-dinner movie. Thank you Jessica and Rachel for hosting us and cooking an amazing turkey!


The day after Thanksgiving I did something I have never done or desired to do - enter the post-Thanksgiving Christmas bonanza. Having easily accessible public transportation helped alleviate the parking frustration. And the amazing Seattle street performers added to the enjoyment of the craziness. For instance, I learned from the crazy street preachers that Thanksgiving is a holiday to thank God he has not killed me yet; good to know. Thankfully, the joyful tub-thumpers were nearby to remind me of the beauty of God's creation and why there is much to delight in. Then there was the free Starbuck's tent endearing a bunch of "buy local" Seattle-ites to mega-corporations one tiny cup of free hot chocolate at a time.

However, the festivities were all about the Christmas Tree lighting and the fireworks. It was the first time I felt playful in a really long time. There was some dancing, some yelling, singing along with carols, and a lot of waving the fun star lights in the air. I felt free, and it felt good. That is so much to be thankful for.

Happy Birthday & A Self-Soothing Christmas!

So, October is great. However, I think I am equally excited about November 1st. First of all, it is my dear friend Tira's (AKA Sporty Spice) birthday! Happy Birthday Tira! Welcome to the world of your third decade; I hope it's full of all new surprises, growth, children, and fun memories together.

This is also the official start of the Christmas season. This can be an incredibly irritating fact, like our entire world wants to skip over gratitude to get to the gifts. But one thing I am thankful for is the amazing string of made for TV holiday movies that will be blessing me with wonderfully heartwarming, romantic fluff for the next two months. There will be a creative retelling of the story of scrooge, the criminal hiding out in a small town who finds redemption, the work-aholic corporate woman who discovers love on Christmas Eve, and of course the black and white classics (of which, Holiday Inn is by far my favorite). And then, a couple weeks before Christmas, the tv executives will get really creative by having the "12 Days Before Christmas" countdown. This means instead of one holiday movies a week, I will get to watch one every single night!!!

Part of this holiday movie extravaganza fantasy is plush carpet. As I am taking a sexual disorders class right now, I may need to grapple with the fetish level of this carpet desire as I literally became teary-eyed rubbing my feet into a carpet the other night. But in the meantime, my holiday fantasy for this season will definitely involve watching these movies on the comfort of the plush carpet in my family's homes. Many of you know...I am what I like to call a "floor dweller." I would choose to sit on the floor over the couch any day. But I am also very tactile...I love texture. I calm myself by sliding my hand over various textures, like my polished nails or my therapists suede couch. Anyway, I don't have carpet at my house, so typically I just lay in bed to watch movies, which is really a horrible habit, but what is a tactile, cheesy-movie loving girl to do?

So fanciful holiday movies + plush carpet = Sarah's self-soothing Christmas.

For my counseling friends, I just want you all to know that I will continue to plunge the depth of meaning into these various pathologies so that the self-soothingness of these activities will be out of the choice to be kind to myself rather than perpetuate dissociation from the realities of my life experience and feelings. =)