It Never Evens Out

Dearest Rachel –

This would probably come as no surprise to you – although I don’t think I ever managed to establish a routine while you were around, what with post-retirement travel plans, the subsequent quarantine, and so forth – but I don’t ever spend an entire day at the ‘office’ since retiring from the official work farce. Not only can I barely get out of the house before nine in the morning these days (especially since I’m constantly having to recover from the hour-plus spent at the gym), but I rarely have anything sufficiently pressing to keep me ‘working’ until five in the evening. On the contrary, there are often demands (well, let’s consider them more ‘requests’; no one ever demands anything of me any more) on my time that need me to be home, or out and about, that take precedence over whatever it is that I might be doing at the ‘office.’

Yesterday was no exception to this ‘new’ reality (which hardly counts as such any more, considering it’s been well over five years now since I’ve reported to a boss other than myself). This time, I’d arranged with Daniel for us to head out once again in the direction of the local mall to do a little more Christmas shopping (including getting some groceries for the family get-together on Sunday; despite breaking the crockpot last time around, I think I can still do the curried köttbullar in a saucepan this time around). While I’ve gotten something bought for every one of the family (aside from you, of course, but that’s no longer an issue), I was hoping to balance things out a little more.

You see, while it’s never been codified as such, I’ve always had it in mind that I ought to be spending at least a certain amount on everyone in the family: call it a Ben-chmark, if you will, given what that minimum has grown to over the years. And while I had gotten most of the family up to that level before yesterday, I was a little short with regard to Daniel’s cousins. Thankfully, it wasn’t a case of not knowing what to get them, but rather simply a matter of going out and getting them – preferably with Daniel in tow, so that he could at least have a hand in the process. And that was what yesterday afternoon was all about.

Interestingly, most of the shopping I knew we’d need to do didn’t center around the mall at all; it was just a geographical anchor point around which all the necessary stops I was aware of were situated. As a general rule, it’s not exactly a place I bother with for shopping. But it seems I ought to pay it more attention while it’s still around; from what I can tell, it’s one of the few thriving malls left in the country, and that’s a thing that deserves a little more appreciation than I tend to give it. Got to enjoy it while it’s still here, or something like that. Besides, Daniel wanted to see if we could get lunch – or would it be dinner, at that hour? – from somewhere in the place while we were there. And to be honest, I was more than happy to oblige him.

The thing is, while I picked up a gift card for one cousin here and the other one there, it began to dawn on me that I wasn’t going to be able to even things out between the two of them. I’d gotten us past the benchmark for both of them, sure, but as we wandered through the mall, Daniel and I kept spotting stuff for her (and Daniel would point out the odd thing for himself that I promptly snapped up as well. I know it ruins the surprise, but it’s no different from how you and I used to do Christmas gifts, back in the day), while there were no similar sudden revelations for him. While she had started out the day behind, in terms of the number and value of gifts, by the end of the day, she had leapfrogged her brother by a considerable amount.

Not only that, but both of them (and Daniel as well, but he gets a pass as our son; it’s only natural that he should be treated with generosity an order of magnitude greater) were now way out in front of their parents: my sister and her husband. What was I going to need to do to bring them up to parity? I should probably look for a gift card for the both of them for a nice restaurant, but then that would probably result in my folks falling behind in the gifting sweepstakes, not that they would necessarily be all that concerned. Still, there’s this unspoken need to make sure that nobody feels like they’ve been ignored in favor of another.

I’d like to believe that I’m merely overthinking this whole thing, honey, and I shouldn’t have to worry myself about all of this. But it does rather bother me when one person gets a stack of packages while another has next to nothing – even if it’s only because the apparent lack is due to having received gift cards rather than tangible items – and I feel like I should be evening things out. The trouble is, when I try to do so, it overbalances in the opposite direction, and now the person originally being shorted is way ahead, ‘requiring’ me to fix that imbalance… and so on, and so on. It never evens out.

Maybe I just need to wrap up what we’ve gotten, and hope everyone will be happy with it all; try not to concern myself with any apparent shortfalls for this person or that, especially when I’ve cleared the benchmark on all fronts at this point. Besides, I do have the wrapping yet to do… and the Christmas cards, and the cooking, and the production work, and…

…well, you get the idea. Keep an eye on me, honey, for the next week or so in particular, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.