Some families, I have learned, write a Chistmas letter detailing their familiar updates for the year gone by and send them to friends - kind of like an annual family diary update, a short blog of the year, just one or two pages will do.
Wikipedia - Christmas Letters
How To - the_familyupdate_christmas_letter
One can only imagine the seriousness of this for some; the rules of what is and isn't appropriate to include; what to be so bold about as to assume the audience should take an interest in reading. Would you use it to present your achievements for some peer respect, or even envy; would you use it as an outpouring for your tribulations for the year, earning sympathy. Maybe in your hard and troubling year you have survived just well enough to put on a brave face about it come the year-end letter, but be distastefully proud in your woe-is-me martyrdom to the assault of life's tribulations. Maybe you just like sharing personal anecdotes to entertain. Another possibility would be to bring a closeness and awareness of your own lives into the lives of others - those who are, or you think should be, your closest friends in the world - where your business in living your own life really hasn't allowed you the social time to keep up with those friends as much as you would have liked to. With this intention, it would be fair to assume, you would like those friends to send their own letters in return so that the 'catching up' can be mutual. Plus it saves a lot of embarrassed idle-yet-searching chit-chat at the next big gathering or event, such as a mutual peer's wedding. You can't really remember anything about the recent lives of your 'friends' but you don't feel it polite to admit to this by asking too much. Oh no! A letter such as this gives that awareness. People can give away what they want, and they can hold private what they want. They too can read about what they want, or not bother with that they don't honestly care for. And finally, it allows for lots of gossip and judgements to be made about those who write to you behind their backs... as you and your family or other friends can pick at all the interesting facts about other people's lives, or speculate at the events and emotions unmentioned, but implied. Hmm. I guess, as many things, it's what you make it.
With this is mind, I decided to write one. I do this for myself, to get my own bearing on my own year. Egocentric braggart? Nah. I don't ask for an audience, it's about letting these things out. And writing them and filing them away privately isn't 'out'.
It's just another blog entry.
<rambly intro off>Wikipedia - Christmas Letters
How To - the_familyupdate_christmas_letter
One can only imagine the seriousness of this for some; the rules of what is and isn't appropriate to include; what to be so bold about as to assume the audience should take an interest in reading. Would you use it to present your achievements for some peer respect, or even envy; would you use it as an outpouring for your tribulations for the year, earning sympathy. Maybe in your hard and troubling year you have survived just well enough to put on a brave face about it come the year-end letter, but be distastefully proud in your woe-is-me martyrdom to the assault of life's tribulations. Maybe you just like sharing personal anecdotes to entertain. Another possibility would be to bring a closeness and awareness of your own lives into the lives of others - those who are, or you think should be, your closest friends in the world - where your business in living your own life really hasn't allowed you the social time to keep up with those friends as much as you would have liked to. With this intention, it would be fair to assume, you would like those friends to send their own letters in return so that the 'catching up' can be mutual. Plus it saves a lot of embarrassed idle-yet-searching chit-chat at the next big gathering or event, such as a mutual peer's wedding. You can't really remember anything about the recent lives of your 'friends' but you don't feel it polite to admit to this by asking too much. Oh no! A letter such as this gives that awareness. People can give away what they want, and they can hold private what they want. They too can read about what they want, or not bother with that they don't honestly care for. And finally, it allows for lots of gossip and judgements to be made about those who write to you behind their backs... as you and your family or other friends can pick at all the interesting facts about other people's lives, or speculate at the events and emotions unmentioned, but implied. Hmm. I guess, as many things, it's what you make it.
With this is mind, I decided to write one. I do this for myself, to get my own bearing on my own year. Egocentric braggart? Nah. I don't ask for an audience, it's about letting these things out. And writing them and filing them away privately isn't 'out'.
It's just another blog entry.
#################################################
Dear somehow interested reader,
Well, what a year it’s been! International, emotional, life-changing, unexpected and possibly defining directions for some years to come. Don’t let that adjectival list imply a year of thrills and excitement, though such things have featured in part.
I saw in 2007 in a cheap hotel in Kathmandu. Well, I didn't really 'see it in' as I was unconscious! I probably went to sleep about 4pm on December 31st, waking to a whole new country I’d only just landed in. I was looking for something new, I was looking for where I was, where I was going. I’d fluffed up becoming a teacher and needed to reorient myself. My feelings were still pointed in the teaching direction - an entrenched ambition and impression of my own future - and they needed loosening before I could concentrate on anything new.
In Nepal, I was exploring, I was hiding, I was embracing, I was escaping, I was dreaming, I was frightened, I was living, I was trying. I achieved things that brought me confidence, in relations to people and in independence.
In my heart I was turning over things that had lingered for a very long time. I was seeking closure. So I wrote letters to some people, some letters that asked for no reply. Mostly they were thank you letters that really mattered.
By the end of 2006, I didn’t quit know what to make of a love that was given to me, and I knew I wasn’t ready to believe in myself in returning it as she deserved. I was flattered, and reflecting a great bond that simply didn’t arise within me to the same degree. Everything needed to slow down, I was hurting her, and didn’t want that anymore. At this distance in Nepal, the gift could be held, and held dear, but also put down, to be able to move on – such are the benefits of being in another world (as being in another culture and country often is). When I returned from Nepal, it was time to move on. That much she had decided; it was fair enough.
I moved, then, to Essex for just over five months. Living in a house with an elderly deaf gentleman called Barry – set in his patterns of living, but a very kind man. I made friends who were volunteering like me, from the US and from Korea. I was working, but not working. I was arranging the companionship and support that I would give to some people as they wanted it - because of their physical or mental impairments. It was rewarding, it was boring, it was frustrating, it was challenging, it was often so simple it was tiring. I also met someone in this time who just hated me, who seemed to get more angry the more time we spent together. We were circumstantial housemates, and I don’t know anyone else I have agitated unwittingly to such a degree before. It was more than upsetting and frustrating. But it was an interesting contrast to be verbally knocked right down and told what a low-life you are when all around you recently people having been thanking you and declaring your benevolence. Neither extreme did I deserve, in my opinion.
I went to Cuba this year with a gentleman who considered himself something of a James Bond in coolness and adventure and needed a travelling companion to get by. I went as a volunteer support worker in a role as a friend. It was something of a tropical paradise of a resort and the whole experience was something else, somewhere else, and it doesn’t even really fit in my map of 2007. It’s like flicking the channel to Wish You Were Here for five minutes or so, and getting whisked away.
Since September, and now, I am back at university, this time in Brighton. This time studying to be a Social Worker. It will take me two years. The pressures and self-management troubles I have known for years are here, of course. The course is shambolic and very light. The placement is filled with lovely people, but little purpose (not their fault, I am to spend 100 days in placement as a trainee social worker where there is no existing social worker or social worker role at that place of work). Despite being here, then, for 3 ½ months, my output has spluttered and barely begun and I feel I’ve learnt nowhere near the amount I should have done for the time and money gone by. But I have hopes for 2008. I have to aim lower and work harder – this is my great challenge. I’ve been aiming too high and working too little too late since 1998! (and that’s much more serious than it sounds)
I’ve been in love with Caroline since late 2005. That’s a story in itself, but not for here. Now she loves me to. Aww. Since late 2007. I’m eventually irresistible. In all seriousness, though, this now means that my life has a certain direction of hope and happiness with her, one that only existed in what I could believe as hopeful make-believe. Considering I’ve felt a certain futility in my feelings towards her for such a relatively long time to the more mutual now, I find myself a little dizzied. Try saying ‘denial’ to yourself in a variety of inflections and degrees of stress – I’ve experienced most of them in my trying to cope before now with my feelings for her. I don’t want this sounding like it has been some kind of emotional ‘trap’ leading to looming inevitabilities, but it does make happy recent times seem slightly unreal or worthy of caution. With just a month or so of mutual togetherness, our futures are being woven in conversation. I’ve been doing it in imagination for years, but now it’s more serious. In this, I am really looking forward to 2008. Easy does it / To hell with caution, let’s hold hands and run!
In 2007, I’ve made myself quite alone. I miss my friends and need to turn that around a bit. Sorry for anyone I’ve been ignoring. I thought I might be living with Stu or Ben or Paul about now at the beginning of the year, but that didn’t quite pan out. I wonder how everyone one really is, because I don’t really know.
Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for a great leap year ahead,
Your friend (I hope),
Mark
Well, what a year it’s been! International, emotional, life-changing, unexpected and possibly defining directions for some years to come. Don’t let that adjectival list imply a year of thrills and excitement, though such things have featured in part.
I saw in 2007 in a cheap hotel in Kathmandu. Well, I didn't really 'see it in' as I was unconscious! I probably went to sleep about 4pm on December 31st, waking to a whole new country I’d only just landed in. I was looking for something new, I was looking for where I was, where I was going. I’d fluffed up becoming a teacher and needed to reorient myself. My feelings were still pointed in the teaching direction - an entrenched ambition and impression of my own future - and they needed loosening before I could concentrate on anything new.
In Nepal, I was exploring, I was hiding, I was embracing, I was escaping, I was dreaming, I was frightened, I was living, I was trying. I achieved things that brought me confidence, in relations to people and in independence.
In my heart I was turning over things that had lingered for a very long time. I was seeking closure. So I wrote letters to some people, some letters that asked for no reply. Mostly they were thank you letters that really mattered.
By the end of 2006, I didn’t quit know what to make of a love that was given to me, and I knew I wasn’t ready to believe in myself in returning it as she deserved. I was flattered, and reflecting a great bond that simply didn’t arise within me to the same degree. Everything needed to slow down, I was hurting her, and didn’t want that anymore. At this distance in Nepal, the gift could be held, and held dear, but also put down, to be able to move on – such are the benefits of being in another world (as being in another culture and country often is). When I returned from Nepal, it was time to move on. That much she had decided; it was fair enough.
I moved, then, to Essex for just over five months. Living in a house with an elderly deaf gentleman called Barry – set in his patterns of living, but a very kind man. I made friends who were volunteering like me, from the US and from Korea. I was working, but not working. I was arranging the companionship and support that I would give to some people as they wanted it - because of their physical or mental impairments. It was rewarding, it was boring, it was frustrating, it was challenging, it was often so simple it was tiring. I also met someone in this time who just hated me, who seemed to get more angry the more time we spent together. We were circumstantial housemates, and I don’t know anyone else I have agitated unwittingly to such a degree before. It was more than upsetting and frustrating. But it was an interesting contrast to be verbally knocked right down and told what a low-life you are when all around you recently people having been thanking you and declaring your benevolence. Neither extreme did I deserve, in my opinion.
I went to Cuba this year with a gentleman who considered himself something of a James Bond in coolness and adventure and needed a travelling companion to get by. I went as a volunteer support worker in a role as a friend. It was something of a tropical paradise of a resort and the whole experience was something else, somewhere else, and it doesn’t even really fit in my map of 2007. It’s like flicking the channel to Wish You Were Here for five minutes or so, and getting whisked away.
Since September, and now, I am back at university, this time in Brighton. This time studying to be a Social Worker. It will take me two years. The pressures and self-management troubles I have known for years are here, of course. The course is shambolic and very light. The placement is filled with lovely people, but little purpose (not their fault, I am to spend 100 days in placement as a trainee social worker where there is no existing social worker or social worker role at that place of work). Despite being here, then, for 3 ½ months, my output has spluttered and barely begun and I feel I’ve learnt nowhere near the amount I should have done for the time and money gone by. But I have hopes for 2008. I have to aim lower and work harder – this is my great challenge. I’ve been aiming too high and working too little too late since 1998! (and that’s much more serious than it sounds)
I’ve been in love with Caroline since late 2005. That’s a story in itself, but not for here. Now she loves me to. Aww. Since late 2007. I’m eventually irresistible. In all seriousness, though, this now means that my life has a certain direction of hope and happiness with her, one that only existed in what I could believe as hopeful make-believe. Considering I’ve felt a certain futility in my feelings towards her for such a relatively long time to the more mutual now, I find myself a little dizzied. Try saying ‘denial’ to yourself in a variety of inflections and degrees of stress – I’ve experienced most of them in my trying to cope before now with my feelings for her. I don’t want this sounding like it has been some kind of emotional ‘trap’ leading to looming inevitabilities, but it does make happy recent times seem slightly unreal or worthy of caution. With just a month or so of mutual togetherness, our futures are being woven in conversation. I’ve been doing it in imagination for years, but now it’s more serious. In this, I am really looking forward to 2008. Easy does it / To hell with caution, let’s hold hands and run!
In 2007, I’ve made myself quite alone. I miss my friends and need to turn that around a bit. Sorry for anyone I’ve been ignoring. I thought I might be living with Stu or Ben or Paul about now at the beginning of the year, but that didn’t quite pan out. I wonder how everyone one really is, because I don’t really know.
Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for a great leap year ahead,
Your friend (I hope),
Mark
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