Different Stages of Ripe

I had four Christmases this year, which feels aggressive considering how tired I am. One was with coworkers. One was with my actual family. One was with my husband’s family- the one he grew up with. And one was with his extended family. The difference between those last two matters.
Christmas with my husband’s actual family was loud and warm and full of babies. So many babies. Tiny hands. Big feelings. Chaos in the best way. I spent most of the time on the floor playing with kids, which is honestly my preferred way to exist at gatherings. Kids don’t need small talk. They just want you to be present, and maybe hold something, and maybe make a funny noise. It was fun. It was easy. It felt good in my body.
The awkward Christmas wasn’t that one.
The awkward one was with John’s extended family.
And it wasn’t bad – just quiet. Not uncomfortable in a dramatic way. Just silent. The kind of silence where everyone seems fine with it, but no one is making eye contact and no one is really talking either. People looking at the floor, over shoulders, at nothing in particular. Sitting in a circle like we were waiting for instructions that never came.
No one did anything wrong. There was just a lot of space where sound could have been.
Christmas number one -the coworker Christmas – was lovely, as always. They’re a chosen family kind of group. Warm. Familiar. Conversation doesn’t feel like work. Laughter shows up on its own. It reminded me that sometimes family is just the people who make a room feel breathable.
Christmas number two was my actual Christmas. Christmas Day. My dad and my brother came over. It was nice. Familiar in the way that only people who knew you before you were complicated can be. I got stoned for the first time in a while, which was fun until my brain decided the only acceptable activity was to deep clean my house while people were there. Nothing says holiday spirit like aggressively wiping something down while your dad exists nearby. A classic. A personal flaw.
But genuinely, I am thankful. For my family. For my chosen family. For my married-into family -both versions of it. Everyone has their own rhythms and weird little things. Some gatherings are loud and sticky with children. Some are quiet and still. It’s all manageable. It has to be. When you choose to live near family, you don’t really get to curate the experience –  you just learn how to move through it.
And I am very glad it’s over.
I still have pies to make, which means a grocery run looming over me like a threat. Unfortunately. I’m broke, and it’s not a joke. I’m waiting to get caught up, which – if we’re being honest – probably won’t happen until a tax return hits. That’s true for a lot of families in America, so at least I’m not alone.
We’re all in the same ocean. Some people have yachts. Some people have canoes. I’m just grateful I’ve got a fishing boat.
I’m not someone who does well with long, unstructured conversations outside my best-friend circle. If there isn’t a topic, my brain will invent one, and it will be weird. My timing is bad. My filter is unreliable. Left unattended, I will absolutely say something that makes the air feel thick.
But small talk? Oh, I can small talk the hell out of anyone.
I have an alarming number of gas station clerk friends. I can walk in, shoot the shit, laugh, and walk out before I derail the interaction. One time, a gas station clerk genuinely asked why they weren’t invited to my wedding.
And I had to stand there like – oh no. I’ve accidentally formed a parasocial bond.
I was like, I’m so sorry I didn’t invite you to my very strange hippie wedding where we did sand art. And said vows on the porch of a house I had literally just bought that same day. It was a stressful day. You were not on my mental guest list, random gas station attendant whose name I do not know.
She’s cool, though.
Those little interactions feed my social meter just enough. One good gas station conversation and I’m set. I could go non-verbal for the rest of the day and be perfectly fine.
That’s also how I write these posts. I talk into my notes app. I ramble. I wander. Then I shape it until it sounds like something I recognize. After that, I run it through autocorrect and Grammarly because spelling is not my strong suit and I’ve accepted that.
There’s a Dollar General near Climax Springs where, when they get a new banana shipment, they used to just throw the old ones away. Hundreds of bananas. Perfectly usable, just bruised. I was talking to the guy at the front once, and he told me he stopped throwing them out. Now he just puts them in a cart so anyone who wants one can take one.
So I took a couple.
Because bruised bananas aren’t bad bananas. They’re banana bread bananas. They’re the kind that don’t look great on the counter but turn into something warm if you give them a little time and attention.
And honestly, that feels like family gatherings.
Some of them are loud and sticky and full of babies on the floor. Some of them are quiet in a way that makes you notice your own breathing. Some of them feel easy, and some of them feel like they need a purpose before they make sense. But none of them are useless just because they aren’t perfect.
They’re just different stages of ripe.
You don’t throw them away. You figure out what they’re good for.
And sometimes, if you’re lucky, you go home with something sweet anyway.