Gifts Galore!

Found here

On my livingroom coffee table rests a package of baby bibs and a set of stackable musical instruments for babies. It is a gift for my nephew whose girlfriend will soon have a baby. I don't know what they need so this gift is one of those generic baby gifts. You know what I mean: soft little socks, bibs, baby blankets, and pastel picture frames--nothing that has to match a predetermined color scheme or name brand set of towels, sheets, or clothes. This is probably the 40th gift I've purchased and wrapped for family members. Not just for their babies, but for their engagements, weddings, and housewarming parties.

Speaking with an always single friend of mine this weekend, we commiserated on the hundreds of dollars we've spent on our friends and family members, celebrating the phases of their lives. Meanwhile, neither of us have ever had an event shower of our own. When she does marry I suspect she will have several bridal showers, given the numerous friends she has.

But I had a private wedding without family members present, and never did have a bridal shower. My friends wanted to give me a shower, but I was rather intent on flying into California for my wedding and flying back home to Indiana. There was no time for a shower. My wedding had to be kept very small because with the feud that split the family down the middle, it would not have been the happiest day of my life to have everyone in one place at one time. Thus, my father, who learned bagpipes just to pipe me down the aisle, never got to do so. If I had invited my parents, my siblings would have been vexed and miserable. If I failed to invite my parents, they would have been devastated. But if everyone had both been present, there would have been A Big Scene, which was not on my wedding agenda. So after my dear friend treated us to a wonderful wedding reception at an Italian restaurant, complete with raspberry chocolate ganache cake, we took off out of California, sans shower.

Celebratory showers have typically been outside of my experience. A secret engagement, quiet wedding, and being childless does not bode well for celebrations with friends or family.

Partly, this suits me. I tend to push people out of my experience because I want privacy and non-interference in my choices. Some people want to talk over every facet of their experience in advance of making crucial life decisions. I used to, but typically, I don't now. There are enough reasons for this that could keep a therapist going for months, but the bottom line is that many life experiences have underscored the fact that not everyone who weighs in on my life is attuned to me or my best interests. I don't feel badly about not having a shower (and this post is assuredly not a request for one!) But it is interesting to note that there are different milestones for people like me than for people like my mother, for example. She had six baby showers for four children and three bridal showers. Not bad, eh?

I, on the other hand, have had most important passages in my life marked by things that have been very meaningful to me but perhaps wouldn't be noticed by other people: Writing an autobiographical petit histoire about my young years; getting my first scholarly article published; pulling off a Thanksgiving dinner for 12 people all by myself; tramping around Europe alone; figuring out my modus operandi as a therapist; coming to terms with the fact that I don't like everyone and don't have to. These are my milestones that have yielded unbelieveably rich results for my personal life. They just contribute to my life quite differently. Each event has somehow helped me to understand and define myself. So I suppose that these are excellent offsets to having never had event showers. But my celebrations have been internal and in private, with myself as witness, celebrant, guest. These are intimate, solitary passages. Because I finally reached unspoken goals of many years. With whom could I share a cake and a gift because now, I can think objectively about some of the harsher realities of living at the vortex of a family feud, not of my making, but being at peace for the most part? It's not a have-a-dish-of-ice-cream kind of celebration, but rather a deep, peaceful contentment. Something to share quietly, reverently, with gratitude, and alone.

Every so often, a true friend who is so attuned to me that they realize the impact of some of these life events help to mark an internal milestone. Once I bought a beautiful pearl ring for myself to wear as a symbol that I finally had been able to get through some very tough personal work. After a year of therapy I was able to say that I liked who I was. It was a great feeling. My friend made me a special dinner and gifted me with a beautiful silver box to store my ring in, and whose engraved lid reads, "And I like her." No one else would have understood, but she did. How rich and what a gift to have someone who "gets me" to celebrate with me.

Still, these bows and pretty wrapping paper, the excitement of friends--they're all so nice, feminine, and exciting in a different kind of way. A shower is not the stuff of dreams for me, because my dreams have usually been kept inside of my head--to myself. Perhaps one day, if Sam and I decide to renew our vows in a few years, I'll be less of a curmudgeon and will be ready for a renewal party or something like that. In the meantime, I eye these pale green packages with white and yellow bows and wonder what it might be like to mark life's passages in public.