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I once was that person who decorated my home for every occasion, relished in the task of taking out the decorations, dusting them off, fluffing them up, running to the store to add to my already overflowing collection, playing the traditional songs, watching the same holiday movies year after year.  I would remember the celebrations that had past, the people who had been there.  The smiles, the laughter, love and joy.

For twenty-five years I lived with a man who believed if someone complimented you, it did not mean anything, except that they noticed and felt obligated to say something.  Celebrations were self gratifying unnecessary waste to bolster one’s ego.  Any time someone would feel proud of an accomplishment, or basically happy to be them, he would scorn and ridicule. 

Hearing this message over and over, took root, and became one of the tracks for what I like to call the blacktaperecorder in my mind. rewind/play/repeat.  I was trained to stop showing and eventually stop feeling any kind of happiness for a celebration.

So, when I received a compliment, I would put on a smile while the black tape recorder pressed bullshit.  Celebrations became an obligation, something to dread.  I stopped pulling out the multiple bins of decorations, and grudgingly put up the bare minimum to give a semblance we were celebrating.  The music stopped, my feeling of joy snuffed out.  It does not matter.  You are not worthy.  It takes away the feeling of hope and purpose.

There is a scene in a movie that has resonated with me for years, the main character talks about why people get married.

Because we need a witness to our lives.  There are a billion people on the planet, but in a marriage, we are promising to care, the good things, the bad things, the mundane things – all of it, all the time every day.
You are saying your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. 
Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will witness it.

Reading an article today about a man who served 20 years in prison who was asked if there is any similarity to the self isolation during this pandemic.  “Days drag and then you wake up and a month has passed” he said. The Groundhog Day sameness of life when one day is no different from the next.  Prisoners, he said, hunger for milestones. 

It is not necessarily the hockey game, bank holiday, concert or celebration itself, but that it marks the difference of one day or week to the next.  Right now, our life can feel like an unpunctuated sentence, shapeless and confusing.

This life on pause is giving me the opportunity to search for the still small voice in the far back corner of my mind, that voice I consider the white voice, it’s the voice of reason, good judgement, the voice of God and lessons I have learned.  It is my own voice that I have allowed others to control or silence.

In this new unprecedented way of life, we have found ways of marking time.  Rainbows on windows, banging pots at the end of a work shift, candles on ledges, zoom communities growing, drive by birthdays. 

Celebrations are important. Compliments a simple gift. Being a part of a community. Rituals.  All of these things help us to grow.  To be. To have a purpose.  It costs us nothing to be compassionate. To encourage. To listen. To learn. To love.

How very simple it is to press *like* and make someone smile.