earlier this november, i started to feel an uncomfortable anxiety in my gut that i haven't really been able to shake since, surrounding the upcoming Christmas --
(not just because covid, i mean that's part of it too. but i won't really elaborate on that here.)
-- and while it seems most people around me stress about giving (and i don't blame them at all for it, i kinda do too), i've been mostly stressed about receiving, to the point where i posted on social media that i specifically don't want anyone to give me anything. That's not even entirely true, but i still think it's preferable to the alternative.
see, every year i get too many impersonal junk gifts. and i already know what some of you are thinking about beggars and choosers. but impersonal gifts not only kinda hurt my feelings, but they also stress me out.
like, i know on some level i should be glad that someone thought of me at all, but impersonal gifts actually feel like they didn't think of me at all.
i promise it's not a monetary value sort of thing - i'm fine with inexpensive gifts. but impersonal gifts tell me someone was trying to meet a quota.
in that way, it kinda feels like the gift is really for themself. To make themself feel generous or something, i suppose.
compounded with that, impersonal gifts stress me out because they just sit in a bag taking up space in my apartment and i feel bad for throwing them out, both because they're gifts and because ecologically-speaking it's really wasteful.
eventually i do either sell it or throw it out but i wish it didn't have to be that way.
so that's why i told everyone i don't want anything, aside from prayers from my religious friends and family, or diapers and wipes, since i happen to have a baby on the way.
what i didn't tell everyone, since beggars and choosers and all that, is that i secretly want a gift that attempts to either establish or maintain a connection between us. i know that's really vague. bear with me.
it doesn't have to be exactly this, but one thing i really have in mind is say, a fiction book with a dedication, maybe detailing why the book means so much to the giver, or how it impacted them, or maybe what they hope i might get out of it.
that sort of thing.
if anyone i know irl is reading this, i want to stress that it doesn't have to be exactly that. And not to be a gift-martyr or anything, but i promise nothing is actually fine. please by all means, don't be a gear in the capitalist machine in my name if you don't want to.
i completely understand that too.
UPDATE: follow-up post here