My brother and sister-in-law live in the house that I grew up in and they have the same neighbors next door and across the street as we did growing up. Recently my sister-in-law told me that the girl that used to live next door to us (her parents still live there) was getting a divorce. My response to her was, “But according to her Christmas letters, her life was perfect!”
This girl, D, 5 years my senior, was my nemesis growing up. I was the youngest kid on the block, the baby of my family. No one else felt the need to pick on me for being the youngest, well except for my brother M, but that’s part of life, right? D was merciless. She was one of those girls who would draw you in pretending to be a friend and then she became super mean in the end. She even took it public. Both of us, with about 60 other kids, participated in a summer play at the local high school. I tried to stay out of her way, here I was a pudgy third grader, but she would find me and taunt me in front of others until I ran into a bathroom crying. Basically I hated her growing up, but was oddly fascinated by her behavior. Why pick on me? I had nothing to covet. She on the other hand was the princess of her family. When I was a kid, out of boredom, I would look at the JCPenney catalog for hours. I can’t EVEN discuss how long I would look at the JCPenney Christmas catalog when it arrived! It was insane! I spent hours looking at all of the bedding pictures in the back of the catalog and pick out the one I wanted the most. For some reason, at the age I thought the end-all be-all would be to have a bedding set from JCPenney with one of those frilly skirt things, bedspread, and matching curtains. My mom wouldn’t even think of it. When she decorated my room she made curtains and everything else in the room and I thought that was totally lame. You had arrived if you had a matching set from JCPenney. Well, D not only had matching bedspread, pillows and curtains, that bitch had a mural on her bedroom wall of the same pattern! Why torture me, her life was perfect. All I had was ugly white wood paneling and homemade crap.
As the years went by, we became kind of chummy via letter since I haven’t lived in the same town as her since 1988. I try not to think about the past because she was so mean and think about her in the present. However, right around 1995 she started sending the “Christmas Letter”. If you’ve ever received one, you know of what I speak. It’s a non-personalized brag letter where you highlight how wonderful your kids and husband are and what great home improvements/vacations/purchases happened in the past year. When I started getting these I realized that she hadn’t really changed. She wasn’t being spiteful, but she was all about the brag. A highlight was when she sent a picture of her two boys, probably aged 11 and 5 with the Christmas letter. As soon as I looked at the picture I spotted something odd. I called my best friend at the time and asked her if she had received the “Christmas Letter” from D. Her response, “Yep”. I asked her if she anything seemed out of place. She responded, “You mean her oldest son flipping the camera a bird?” Exactly! She hadn’t noticed before she sent the picture out that her oldest snarky son was surreptitiously flashing his middle finger in the picture. It all seemed okay after that.
But my favorite little bit in one of the Christmas letters of past was a bit about a concert. I was just reading an essay that discussed the fact that a high percentage of people attending a concert just do it in order to say that they were there, not really to enjoy the music. It’s for the cool factor. Back in 2002, I received the “Christmas Letter” from D and at the end of it she said something to the effect of “and let’s not forget the John Mayer concert D and I attended this summer. It was rockin”. Her husband is a “D” name as well. Okay, what’s wrong with this? It’s 2002! The only album John Mayer had out at the time was “Room for Squares”, that album that boasted the single “No Such Thing” where he sings about his high school and his parents. I admit that I got his album “Heavier Things” for Christmas 2003 because my guilty pleasure that winter was the song “Bigger than My Body”. But I never admitted to anyone that I owned that CD until I was drunk this past December at a friend’s house and had to confess to someone. However, boasting about a John Mayer concert in 2002 to put out some kind of rockin image of yourself, now that’s just wrong. Since then, I have felt superior, and actually feel a bit sad for her. It’s all about karma I suppose. --J
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