And those are of course the big love holidays.
The small holidays in some ways can be even harder. The Columbus Days, Labor Days, and of course the Fourth of July. Their very lack of mysticism, magic, or portent; the ordinariness of their prescribed celebrations magnifies, not diminishes, the self consciousness of the single man. Of this single man.
This is not meant to be woe-is me-diatribe. More of an exercise in self examination.
Look at Christmas as counter example. It's the most likely candidate- most revered of holidays in Christian (or Christian rooted) America. The mere scale of the holiday keeps in check any personal hopes we might hold for ourselves. How's a wish for a kiss under the mistletoe supposed to hold up against the expected universal hope for peace on earth. Who would have such a blasphemous thought?
On the other hand Christmas is supposed be the time of miracles. If "A Christmas Carol", "It's a Wonderful Life", or Charlie Brown's Christmas tree have taught us anything, it's that if a miracle is going to happen, our winter solstice is the best possible chance. The shortest day of the year, so all the magic and promise of daylight must be more condensed, more concentrated, easier to get a metaphysical grip on. A day when the veil separating earth from heaven had been thin enough to allow the holiest of holy to pass through and uplift the miserable. So if the lonely are going to dare dream, this is the day.
So we subliminally approach the cooling winter days with a timorous hope. We see the fresh, clean blankets of snow as clean slates upon which to write the next chapter in our story. Our eyes peeled for the entrance of that new alluring character who will arrest our heart in an instant, and when we can finally draw our next breath, it's as though it were the first. fresh from the womb sensing, "Yes, this is what it means to be alive." We picture ourselves standing beneath the blinking colored lights hung from the snow covered lamp posts illuminating the signs that read Joy to the World and May Your Holidays Be Bright - and you believe now these are possible.
Or so we dream.
We may oscillate between these fiery, romantic imaginings to brisk, cold-water dousings of reality checks. We remember that after all, Charlie Brown is a cartoon, so we can't really expect the grand illustrator is going to bring about the marvelous transformation to our lives that Schultz bestowed upon the meager sapling. We take to heart the admonishments to be grateful for the more practical blessings that we already have. We stand among our partnered friends and family and become one of the group, singing along to "Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas," and try our best to do so.
But hope, or fantasy, returns again and again.
At forty and single, the Fourth of July proffers neither the necessary promise nor the desired cover to offset singledom self-consciousness. Likewise those three-day mail-carrier holidays. Family members head off to in-law celebrations. The newly coupled set out for romantic getaways. Parents take their kids to Six Flags or some edu-vacation. And the nesters are re-grouting the guest bath. And all this is as it should be.
Still, we are invited to a barbecue or picnic and gather with friends to enjoy the baked beans and corn on the cob. We watch the couples come through the back gates, the kids blow their bubbles, and we listen to the "Jim and I just got back from his Aunt's beach house" conversations. Laughing, we tip back a few beers and truly have a good time. Year after year... Memorial Day to Columbus day.
But comes a day when the thought of walking alone through that gate simply hollows me out to the core. For this perennially single guy, the backyard barbecue, this ultimate bastion of the becoupled and familied, my recurring presence becomes a sort of sacrilege; an affront to the gods of adult camaraderie. Irrational, perhaps. But no less real.
So as this Independence Day approached I sought no plan. I decided to give myself license to let it just be another Saturday. I got a trashy Koontz out of the library and stocked the fridge and just tried to forget the holiday.
A ridiculous proposition. American Independence Day may not have the commercial zeal or religious zealotry of Christmas, or the symbolic marching-on sentimentalism of New Year's Eve. It is however undeniably the absolute noisiest of all holidays. From nine o'clock to about midnight, there was no blocking out the revelry.
The assault on Fort McHenry immortalized in our national anthem could not have been more relentless than the assault on my seclusion. The bombs bursting in air were punctuated by enthusiastic whoops and wails penetrating the thin panes of my windows. One group of merry-makers was most distinct and most ardent. I closed my eyes as I lay on the daybed in my living room picturing the show. Each sequence of bursts evoked images of explosions, of color and light; the steady progression of intensifying pyrotechnics. The fervor of the cheers lifted me out of myself and brought me to the threshold of the scene. The dark sky blazing. And the revelers, intoxicated by the spectacle and not a few beers or margaritas, standing with arms around each other, the light of their kinship challenging the radiance in the sky.
Among the voices that reached my ears, one young man's rose above the others in both volume and passion. I immediately loved this drunken frat boy. I admired his abandon and envied the night he was living.
After each burst I would turn my attention to his particular timbre, like a sunflower toward the sun. I wondered what separated us. Was it age? Surely he could be no more than 25. Was there an intrinsic quality to youth that just naturally faded within me over time. Or did I give it up gradually, willingly, bit by bit. Is that necessarily a bad thing, or is it more an exchange? If so, what is the trade-off.
Was it life history? How different was his path from mine? How were they similar? We both shared a small corner of the earth for at least one night. Maybe more. For all I know he could be a guy I see all the time on the metro or at the gym. Strange to think I'd never actually know. But in the end did it matter?
Of course I could have gone out there and whooped. I had invitations I ignored. I had invitations I could have extended myself. Probably what separated me most from this exultant fellow traveler is the simple turning of the door knob and putting one foot in front of the other.
At forty and single, the Fourth of July proffers neither the necessary promise nor the desired cover to offset singledom self-consciousness. Likewise those three-day mail-carrier holidays. Family members head off to in-law celebrations. The newly coupled set out for romantic getaways. Parents take their kids to Six Flags or some edu-vacation. And the nesters are re-grouting the guest bath. And all this is as it should be.
Still, we are invited to a barbecue or picnic and gather with friends to enjoy the baked beans and corn on the cob. We watch the couples come through the back gates, the kids blow their bubbles, and we listen to the "Jim and I just got back from his Aunt's beach house" conversations. Laughing, we tip back a few beers and truly have a good time. Year after year... Memorial Day to Columbus day.
But comes a day when the thought of walking alone through that gate simply hollows me out to the core. For this perennially single guy, the backyard barbecue, this ultimate bastion of the becoupled and familied, my recurring presence becomes a sort of sacrilege; an affront to the gods of adult camaraderie. Irrational, perhaps. But no less real.
So as this Independence Day approached I sought no plan. I decided to give myself license to let it just be another Saturday. I got a trashy Koontz out of the library and stocked the fridge and just tried to forget the holiday.
A ridiculous proposition. American Independence Day may not have the commercial zeal or religious zealotry of Christmas, or the symbolic marching-on sentimentalism of New Year's Eve. It is however undeniably the absolute noisiest of all holidays. From nine o'clock to about midnight, there was no blocking out the revelry.
The assault on Fort McHenry immortalized in our national anthem could not have been more relentless than the assault on my seclusion. The bombs bursting in air were punctuated by enthusiastic whoops and wails penetrating the thin panes of my windows. One group of merry-makers was most distinct and most ardent. I closed my eyes as I lay on the daybed in my living room picturing the show. Each sequence of bursts evoked images of explosions, of color and light; the steady progression of intensifying pyrotechnics. The fervor of the cheers lifted me out of myself and brought me to the threshold of the scene. The dark sky blazing. And the revelers, intoxicated by the spectacle and not a few beers or margaritas, standing with arms around each other, the light of their kinship challenging the radiance in the sky.
Among the voices that reached my ears, one young man's rose above the others in both volume and passion. I immediately loved this drunken frat boy. I admired his abandon and envied the night he was living.
After each burst I would turn my attention to his particular timbre, like a sunflower toward the sun. I wondered what separated us. Was it age? Surely he could be no more than 25. Was there an intrinsic quality to youth that just naturally faded within me over time. Or did I give it up gradually, willingly, bit by bit. Is that necessarily a bad thing, or is it more an exchange? If so, what is the trade-off.
Was it life history? How different was his path from mine? How were they similar? We both shared a small corner of the earth for at least one night. Maybe more. For all I know he could be a guy I see all the time on the metro or at the gym. Strange to think I'd never actually know. But in the end did it matter?
Of course I could have gone out there and whooped. I had invitations I ignored. I had invitations I could have extended myself. Probably what separated me most from this exultant fellow traveler is the simple turning of the door knob and putting one foot in front of the other.
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