Saving Christmas

So, I'm watching Santa Clause 2 with the fam after a tasty breakfast and at one point, Tim Allen's character says "I've ruined Christmas"

And it made me think about the financial struggles and screwups and issues and it made me feel like that is exactly what I have done. It doesn't matter that the expectation levels are high - I helped raise the bar every one of the last 5 Christmases our family has had and now, facing a Christmas that we will be lucky to have half what we had last year, I am feeling pretty worthless.

So many things have to break just right to even get to that point. And I know that I have to play each one like a carefully thought out poker game with every ebb and flow and misdirection and real and fake tells and anything else that could happen all while playing it cool enough that no one realizes how close I am to failing the people I love.

Between crisis after crisis at work, crisis after crisis in the financial department, the impending bomb of my student loans coming due and well, the gamut of issues in the lives of the people I love, I wonder how much I can carry.

And I remember that I have always sought out positions of leadership. That I have always admired men like MacArthur who overcame impossible odds in Malinta tunnel and at Inchon and Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. That the men who succeed do so by being cool and focused under inordinate pressure. And that they are leaders because people turn to them in the moment of crisis to seek support and confidence and comfort - to know they will be the ones who solve the problem.

I know the night before Inchon must have been hell for MacArthur. I imagine what it must have been like for him to stand in Malinta tunnel as the commander, the husband and the father and know that he could never show anything other than supreme confidence or else he would rattle the already strained morale of his troops and his family. I cannot imagine what it must have been like the night before the Missile Crisis ended when we truly stood on the brink of unthinkable destruction. And then I remember that the context of my issues is pretty durn small. I know a year from now it will be okay.

I choose leadership because of three things. God gave me gifts that let me do it well and it would be wrong to choose easier paths because I wanted less stress in my life. I truly do want to make things better for the people I am responsible for, for the people I love, for the people I serve. And I would much rather be the person in the room making decisions than the person outside the room waiting for decisions to be made. So this is my path. I chose it, and I would choose it again. The pain in my chest is the penalty of rank as Drucker says.

And yesterday, in church, the Gospel said “Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.” And I heard that loud and clear. So much of my little life crises are mere tribulations that distract me from what matters.

So, I don't have time to worry. And it is wrong to give in to stress and worry.

I have to save Christmas.

Leadership

The hardest thing about leadership is the public face.

When I'm down or discouraged or outright depressed I don't think there is a place where I can show it. At work I have to be a force of nature - cheery optimism is so crucial - my boss calls it the confident shrug. At home, when I am down it shakes everyone because I have so many things that are crucial to everyone's happiness and they have been so let down by so many others.

And so much of what sends me down is small and silly. I so miss having a Great Dane around I can't speak to it but there is simply no way I can have one again. It would be unfair and cruel to inflict one on my wife when she lacks the strength to manage one since she would be the person who spent the most time with it. I can't spend the kind of time with one I need to and a dog that size doesn't fit into my life anymore. I love our little hounds...but they just lack the presence of the big guys I enjoyed so much. I look at Dane stuff and I get sad. I see Danes and I am near tears. And I know that makes ME the person who sucks.

And I don't stay down but I do downcycle a lot. And all I can do is put the public face on and wait for those moments when I can be alone with the black dog.

Nightmares

So I woke up from a nightmare to a happy dog. It's better that way.

In the dream I think we were somehow living at West Point again. I heard cannons going off and didn't think much of it since cannons go off periodically. The wife and I were talking in the house with guests and both girls were home. I said something that sort of reflected a bunker mentality and that set off some sort of argument. So I went outside.

And I noticed that the cannon fire was occurring fairly regularly. And then I noticed that shells were actually landing nearby and doing damage to trees and structures. Several in a row. Long smoke tails arching behind them. And somehow I turned and had visibility of the Plain and saw cannons going off and firing directly at the old buildings and barracks and now, instead of the metal hunks landing nearby, they were actually firing exploding shells and doing significant damage.

And then I realized we were actually under attack and went back in the house trying to decide whether to tell the wife we needed to pack for a week or three days. All the thoughts of being a refugee started flooding my head and the logistics were flying and I was trying to decide how to keep everybody calm while still getting them to run really fast.

And then the hound wanted to be petted.

It has been that kind of week. So much cannon fire that it seems like it is routine until the dim awareness grows into clarity and you realize they are firing at you. But I don't get to run. First I need to find a cannon and then return fire. Counterattack. And then I need to find a way to win a war that will never end with battles on 293 fronts at once. And we won't even talk about the financial disasters I battle every month.

I had a nightmare on Wednesday that I came home from work and the wife had died in our bed. And that completely shredded me. I am overwhelmed sometimes by how much I love her and need her. It seems during life's routine moments that things are not that intense but I cannot imagine I would survive without her. She has become so completely the most important person in my life it is like her existence sustains mine in a way that is so complete that removing her takes away something so essential that my system simply could not function like it had no air. I'm not even aware of how connected we are sometimes because it feels so natural to be connected to her.

And then, with that on my mind, I come home to deal with the kid's little parachute jump and that rattled me to my core. I was shaking I was so upset and I knew it was ridiculous and way out of proportion but all I could see when I heard about it was Viet Cong killing my father. I had a full blown panic attack and had to maintain the impression that I was just mad. When everyone else watched the video and I could hear them laughing and enjoying it, I was doing everything I could to fight the fight or flight terrors. I literally turned red and my chest was in such pain I was checking my rapidly accelerating pulse. I had three nights of that kind of excruciating pain this week. And I couldn't possibly share that much weakness so I just passed it off as really hating recreational jumping (which I do)...when I started trying to explain it to the wife it just sounded like "I am so weak and undeserving of being the man around here." so I stopped talking.

It's funny how over time it has come to me that no one really wants to know all the stuff in my head. I wish I had been clearer on that earlier in my life. I start to say things, to write things that are what I really think or what I really feel and I know that it doesn't matter and it would either be weird or upsetting to others so I just say the right things or backspace and type something else.

I indulge the black dog to keep me on edge and to vent a little of the emotions that have no other path. I am playing Full of Grace constantly again.

But I remain indomitable. I will not yield to this and I will not lose.

Despite that a nap would be nice. And some assets. Anyone have a fire cloak?