Plain Joyce
Christmas is right around the corner and we are all rushing to get the last minute things done. Soon families will descend upon our homes and the house will be full.
Today I want to talk about how we handle the "irregular people" in our lives. The holidays seem to bring this out so much for many of us. Many years ago, I read the book Irregular People by Joyce Landorf, which is all about how to deal with the irregular people in our lives. The best way to describe an irregular person in our life is that person for whom nothing is every enough or right. She tells a story of working like crazy on a holiday meal, getting everything on the table, having several varieties of things so that everyone would have their favorite. Her mother happened to be on of the irregular people in her life. When the table was set, her mother came in, surveyed the table, and said "Don't you have any plain red Jello?" The thing about irregular people is they are usually related, which means we can't just walk away from them.
She borrows this term from a book titled Summer of My German Soldier. In the story, a young girl named Patty hides a German soldier after he escapes from a POW camp. Patty and her sister were raised by a black nanny named Ruth. Patty always feels that she just doesn't measure up to what her parents want or expect from her. When it is eventually found that she has been hiding the soldier after his escape, her father disowns her and tell her that to him, she is dead. She runs to Ruth's house, crying, asking why her parents never loved her, what was wrong with her because it surely must be her. In one of the most significant parts of the book, Ruth shares this with Patty:
"I ain't nevah 'fore cast me no 'spersions on other folks' folks, but your folks ain't nevah gonna feel nothing good regarding you. And they ain't the number one best quality folks neither. They shore ain't. When I goes shoppin' and I sees the label stamped, 'irregular' or 'seconds' then I know I won't have to pay so much for it. But you've got yourself some irregular seconds folks and you've been paying more'n top dollar for them, so jest don't go a-wishing for what ain't nevah gonna be"
And so you see, we all have irregular people in our lives. And we may spend our entire life trying to be good enough. Holidays tend to bring families together, and no matter how much you may avoid this person or persons, holidays are one of those times when you simply can't avoid them. So how to cope?
In my own life, my parents were some of my irregular people. Something was always not quite right, no matter what I did or tried. It took me many years into adulthood to finally realize I simply couldn't please them and that it really didn't matter what I did or how I tried. Some things simply don't change. For me, it came about by learning to "reframe" things. I realized that they were never going to change and so I simply stopped trying to make it different. I stopped "a-wishing for what ain't nevah gonna be." And I started expecting those things that I knew would happen when they were around. I just accepted that they were going to say or do something hurtful, and when it came, I learned to recognize it for what it was and move on. On the rare times that nothing did happen, I was pleasantly surprised; and when something DID happen, I could say "yep, there it is" and go on with things.
I still have irregular folks in my life. I wish I could tell you that they don't get to me any longer, but that's not the case. They still do sometimes. And it seems they come out a lot more at the holidays! And yep, they are always related.:)
How about you? How do you deal with the irregular people in your life so that your holidays aren't so negatively impacted?
Kathy Nicholls has been involved in the MT industry for over 30 years and is currently the president of the Medical Transcription Training Alliance, which offers guidance on available MT training programs. She also operates the MT Tools Online website, which provides continuing education for healthcare documentation professionals. Nicholls is also the published author of the "Stedman's Guide to the HIPAA Privacy Rule."
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