Tag: family pain

Elephant Around the Christmas Tree

Alcoholism, Marriage By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Elephant Around the Christmas Tree

Audio version now available.

 

The Christmas Tree lights are off and the house is quiet. I’m slumped over on the loveseat, my neck sore from the unnatural angle created by the upholstered arm. This room was full of people, my people, when I nodded off. Christmas music and laughter and footed pajamas. A note was being penned reminding Santa that the carrot is for Rudolph. In the dark, I can make out the shadow of the Santa gifts next to the fireplace. The remnants of a glass of beer–about an inch left in the bottom–is on the coffee table next to the plate of cookie crumbs. Warm and flat, I drink it down before stumbling to my bedroom.

Parents Crushing Kids’ Emotional Grit

Emotional Masculinity, Parenting By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Parents Crushing Kids' Emotional Grit

Audio version now available.

 

Jack Christopolis was one of my best friends growing up. When I was invited to dinner at his house, his mom made typical midwestern fair for Jack and his brothers, his dad, and me. From meatloaf and mashed potatoes to roasted chicken with carrots and onions, eating at Jack’s house was a lot like eating at home. With one exception. Jack had a very narrow flavor palate, and refused to eat his own mother’s cooking. She made him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich almost every time I had dinner with Jack’s family. At my house, the options were limited to eating what was lovingly prepared for me, or starving until breakfast when I could eat last night’s dinner cold.

Masculinity that’s NOT Toxic

Emotional Masculinity By Matt Salis, MPS No Comments

Masculinity that's NOT Toxic

Audio version now available.

 

At the opening of the holiday classic, A Christmas Carol, the narrator insists that we accept the fact that Marley is dead. “This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.” As a kindred spirit to Ebenezer Scrooge, I have always wanted to use that quote. In the spirit of the season, and because it fits the point I shall attempt to make, now is my chance.

 

When I talk of the critical necessity that men adapt and evolve into Emotional Masculinity, I am not misogynistically suggesting that women embrace femininity as some sort of retro, throwback, stone-age counterbalance. And yet, when women I know well–women who have weighed my pros and cons and decided to trust me–when my closest female discovery warriors hear me talk of Emotional Masculinity, they instinctively bristle.

3 Things I Love about Friendsgiving

Alcoholism, Family By Matt Salis, MPS No Comments

3 Things I Love about Friendsgiving

Audio version now available.

 

You probably assume that one of my top three loves for a holiday meal shared with friends rather than family is the likelihood of avoiding tense conversations about politics–the conflicts prevalent around a traditional multi-generational family Thanksgiving table. The last Saturday Night Live episode in November almost always features at least one skit that starts with a smiling family watching the patriarch carve the turkey, and devolves into a blur of isms and phobias with a predictable buildup and and eventual crescendo of mashed potato spittle being scream-launched while someone chugs directly from the wine bottle out of desperation.

 

Avoiding such scenes is not one of the three reasons I love Friendsgivings.

Emotional Safety is a Dying Fad

Emotional Safety By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Emotional Safety is a Dying Fad

Audio version now available.

 

I hate having my priorities in order. Why do I listen to all the talking heads who unanimously confirm that when people are on their deathbeds, they want their families around them, and they don’t utter a single word about their careers or their money. Knowing relationships matter more than power and prestige is unhelpful. I’ve been societally conditioned since birth to achieve and accumulate. Now I’ve got to consistently put the people who love and trust me first? What a drag.

I Wish She Would Die

Addiction, Emotional Safety, Family By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

I Wish She Would Die

Audio version now available.

 

“I wish my partner would die.”

 

The gruesome, shameful desire uttered faintly through hopeless lips, the unexpected authenticity of an exhausted heart. She looked up slowly, terrified to see the reactions of the people to whom she had gifted her trust, afraid that her new admission had crossed the line of relatability to something unthinkable.

 

She saw nodding heads. Lots of nodding heads.

Bizarre at the Boathouse, Part 1

Addiction, Family By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Bizarre at the Boathouse, Part 1

Audio version now available.

 

The boathouse in Wash Park has a long and storied history. I mean, it must, right? I’ve never looked into it, but it looks old, and it’s definitely the anchor of the park, the neighborhood, maybe the whole southeast side of Denver. It is the hub of the Independence Day bicycle parade, couples get married there, and it is an easy meeting spot for people walking together in the park.

 

But it doesn’t house any boats. Maybe they store the floating plastic paddle swans under it in the winter, but for all of its iconic grandeur, they ought to have an old Mississippi riverboat cemented into the lakeshore next to it.

 

A riverboat would make a nice backdrop for homecoming dance pictures for the high school adjacent to the south side of the park. We are in the midst of a universally acknowledged, social-media-exacerbated, mental-health epidemic, so the homecoming dance sounds like a great way to encourage our young people to spend face-to-face time together. And it is. I am pro hoco. But as I leaned on the boathouse Saturday night, trying to stay out of the way and not brush against any of the girls who seemed to have shopped for dance gowns in the lingerie department, it occurred to me that the predance picture ritual might not be helping.

Rubber Stamping a Toxic Culture

Addiction, Self-Esteem By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Rubber Stamping a Toxic Culture

Audio version now available.

 

I bought a rubber stamp from a door-to-door rubber stamp salesman once. It was early in our whole grain bread bakery career–maybe 2005. He was wearing a suit and tie long after Friday business casual had seeped into the other four days of the week. He carried a brief case that he opened on our bakery counter. It didn’t actually have briefs in it at all. He had dozens of rubber stamps in little molded foam compartments. He had big stamps that said, “PAST DUE,” in all caps, and small round stamps that said, “Have a nice Day!” in letters arched around a smiley face. He had stamps with rotating numbers so you could adjust the date, and stamps with custom corporate logos. Of course, he had bottles of various colors of ink, and ink pads with lids to keep the ink from drying out.