PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Despite the often adversarial relationship that my parents and I often experienced, I must admit, in all fairness, that they always provided excellent Christmas seasons for me.  Among the most memorable of them were 1963, when a plastic model of Frankenstein's Monster first introduced me (although I did not know it then) to Mary Shelley, through her most memorable fictional character; December 1968, when I received from them a bicycle with the curved down handlebars, banana seat, and sissy bar (it did not have gears, however; that cost more than they wanted to spend, and justified it to me by telling me, as they so often did in situations like this, that what I had received was 'Just as good"; it wasn't).  Then came December, 1973, in which I attempted to write a science fiction novel, and also participated in my church's Christmas Eve Liturgy as an altar boy (the liturgical participation would continue for three more years).  December 1974 brough participation in a local trivia game show for high school teams, produced locally, in which I participated, including the dinner out with my classmates at the end of the evening; and my supreme December experience, 1976, when I had returned from the first term of my freshman undergraduate year (having lived on campus for those eleven or so weeks), and found a "coming together" of several strands of life (including another liturgcal participation---this time, not as an altar boy, but as Assistant Celebrant).

What I did not know, as I moved through these December experiences, was that the year 1981, incuding its December, would constitute what was the worst year of the sixty-five years of my life to this particular moment.  I had graduated in 1980 with a useless degree; my first real job, in the Autumn of 1980, had resulted in abject and utter failure; and my college sweetheart had left me for a better prospective companion (economically and socially speaking).  So 1981 began for me with the most overwhelming sense of despair.

What I didn't realize was that I was not utilizing the safety net of memories (some of which I have just mentioned in the paragraph above about several Decembers).  I had not yet learned the havit of combing through my collection of memories to find analog experiences, both positive and negative, as needed.  THis habit of thinking, which I might have learned at college had I been a better student, did not present itself until my second real job, which was with a financial services corporation that no longer exists, and which lasted from February, 1982 through March of 1985.  Much of the work I was required toi perform in that capacity was based upon precedents---precedents of decisions, procedures, and research.  In learning to do this, I was, one day, suddenly struck by the idea that it could be useful also in a more personal way---not deciding creditworthiness and how much an approved loan should be worth, but deciding strategies for getting through the circumstances of my existence.  The habit has not failed me since that time---although it cannot guarantee that all decisions are correct, and that all the effects of those decisions are comfortable.  And old age does not detract from it, but expands it (one of the few positive developments of aging).

Starward