A Thing

It’s hot.

Eighty-four degrees in the house, to be precise.  At 11:46 p.m.

I have this thing (one of many that makes me so attractive) that I don’t turn on the A/C until Memorial Day, and it goes off after Labor Day.

And the rest of the time we suffer.

Here’s the thing about having a “thing”: sometimes it’s good. I also have a thing about bigotry (deal breaker) and standing up for people who can’t stand up for themselves (a must-do).

But sometimes a “thing” can be a serious detriment. Not just the fact that if I had balls to sweat off they would be long shriveled and melted away. This is minor, and I will certainly survive (plus, I already have offspring, so infertility is no biggie. And the dogs are getting a little chubby and could maybe be wrapped in plastic wrap to expedite their weight loss. But I digress).

A “thing” like insisting on never doing something (because you never have done that thing before) or always doing something because that’s the way you’ve always done it: these can be bad.

This past Christmas (and I use this label to mark the date only, as we do not celebrate the birth of Jesus in any way), we threw out every tradition we ever had, sort of a preemptive strike against any guerilla grief. We didn’t get out ornaments . We didn’t eat Chinese or go to a movie on the 25th. We weren’t even on our regular coast. And it was perfect. It was different.

It was liberating.

So I may be too cheap to turn on the A/C early (and that may never change), but I wonder what else I should think of doing differently, what “things” I should re-visit and re-think. Now seems to be the time. I am a big fan of systems, but everything is changing.

What do you cling to? For better or worse?

Image by Pockafwye via Flickr