I have read this prompt over and over and I keep asking myself if people have negative examples of where they have felt love? Anyway…I feel loved every day and I only realised this while contemplating a response to this prompt. I don’t think i have ever felt unloved. I have felt unappreciated and perhaps like my presence is unwanted in certain spaces (as can happen), but I have never felt unloved.
Throughout my life, I have been the apple of my dad’s eye. Knowing this, I never had reason to question whether I was loved or not. Knowing that I am loved by someone and, more recently, understanding and accepting that I am loved unconditionally by God has ensured that I don’t need to seek love anywhere. For this, I am eternally grateful, as I know that not everyone has this experience in life. I do find that I have a need to be seen, appreciated and respected.
There are quite a few ways that this can happen that works for me. An example would be when someone acknowledges something that I have said. It doesn’t matter whether they agree with me or not; what matters is that they hear me. I don’t know why, but that is very important to me. I guess if I looked at my life through the lens of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the bottom three rungs are taken care of (physiological, safety and security, love and belonging), and I tend to look to others to take care of some of my esteem needs, in particular, recognition and respect.
I am actually blown away that this has been quite an insightful little exercise. I think I have discovered something important about myself! Whadda you know! 🤪 I must admit that until this moment, I hadn’t quite been able to internalise the quote from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Now, I can finally say, “I get it.” 😊
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What insights did you come up with when you contemplated this question?
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?
Hello Hello! Hmmm…good question Bloganuary. I do play in my daily life. All work and no play makes Michelle a dull girl after all. Play takes several forms for me and which I choose depends on my frame of mind at the time.
Online Scrabble – I have been playing this for about 14 years. I love that it has a chat feature. I have made a good few friends over the years. Most are based in the UK. This is my go to game when I need a distraction. It’s not mindless and I am learning new words and strategies all the times.
Vegging in front of the TV – This is new for me. I am not a TV person, but I do have a few favourite programmes like Law & Order, Bosch, Reacher and Friends (my son and I can watch that show over and over again). My new favourites are the documentaries on Netflix. I really enjoyed the one on Arnold Schwarzenegger (phew, that took a few attempts to get the spelling right😅). I found it very inspiring. His story reminds us that anything is possible if you choose it to be and set your mind to it.
Reading – Books are my forever companions. A fully loaded Kindle and a solar-powered power bank would be a must if you were to leave me on a desert island. :).
Coffee with friends – I have very few friends, and they are worth more than their weight in gold. They help me see life from different perspectives and they soothe my soul.
Shopping - I looove shopping although I don’t shop as often as I used to and won’t be this since my word for the year is “less”. I enjoy the thrill of acquiring items of beauty for my home that will make me look good or even a new book. I can spend hours in a bookshop just browsing. I very seldom leave empty-handed, too. I must buy at least one book.
Spending time with my son – This always soothes my soul. He spends most of his time playing games these days, so I don’t get to spend as much time with him as I used to. As a result, I treasure the moments that I do get.
It’s Christmas Eve! I am very excited as I get to see my dad tomorrow. My heart is sore that my son will not be with us, but I know he misses us already. I am looking forward to being around the rest of my family!
I used to love the rituals and traditions of Christmas as a kid. My mother would bake Christmas mince pies the night before to have with coffee/tea after midnight mass. I was not much of a fan, but I enjoyed them when they came out of the oven. Her pastry was always light and crispy, so I loved biting into the pies. We would attend midnight mass, which was the most popular mass. I don’t think our church was ever as full during the year as it was for midnight mass. It was the coolest place to be!
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When we got home, we got to open our gifts. Sometimes, that gift was a birthday and Christmas present since my birthday was two weeks after, or it was a small gift at Christmas, and I would receive the main one for my birthday. At the time, my heart would be a bit sore, but one nice gift was definitely better than none. I grew up in a middle-class family, so there was always enough to meet our needs and, pretty often, our wants as well, but sometimes the needs required a little more of a stretch in the budget. In South Africa, January is also the start of the school year, so school uniforms, etc., are the budget priority every year. I digress… once all the gifts were opened, it was time for bed. In the morning, my mum would cook a hearty lunch. There was always tongue, roast beef or pork, a curry, rice, salad, or veggies. My favourite part was always dessert. My mum made a traditional boiled Christmas pudding and would stuff a few coins inside. Everyone always got one, but it was that moment of sheer delight when you heard your teaspoon scrape against it as you took another spoonful or you saw it peaking through in your pudding. Even though it was guaranteed, I always felt super lucky to get one.
After lunch, my dad would insist that he suffered from a skin shortage and that his expanded tummy was pulling his eyelids close. 😂 My sisters and I would be occupied with our gifts, or we would compare gifts with neighbourhood friends. My mum would rest.
Christmas at Granny’s
We continued this tradition until the year before my mum passed away. Our kids loved it just as much as we did. We would leave a biscuit and milk for Father Christmas, and the person who locked up when leaving for midnight mass would have to place the gifts under the tree, drink the milk, and eat the biscuits. 😂 Every year, without fail, the kids were in awe. They believed Father Christmas had visited while we were in church and left their gifts. When my son was about five, he was convinced he heard Father Christmas’s sleigh flying over the church. He was too cute.
Our new ritual is to assemble at my baby sister’s house for lunch, and we open our gifts there. Her husband and mother-in-law make us divine curries, biryanis, gammon, and salads. Yum! My mouth waters at the thought. I make the traditional Christmas pudding, and I still add the coins for the fun of it. I am so grateful to have such fantastic memories of Christmas and to have been able to share my childhood experiences with my son. We have a new reality now, and I feel it is fitting that the tradition has changed, as it would not have been the same without my mum. She was central to the old one. I am also grateful that I still get to celebrate Christmas and that I get to do it with my family.
I have been searching for pics of Christmases past and I noticed that I have very few. While I am disappointed, I also see it as a good thing. It means I am so present in the moment that I tend to forget about my phone. That is a very rare for me these days. Christmas is definitely an “All In” day for me.
Do you still follow the same rituals as you did as a child, or have you created new rituals and traditions for your family? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for stopping by. Have a wonderful Christmas! Be blessed.
Grounded African 