What is the difference between giving up an addiction and closing the door to a chapter of life? It appears not much.
For the last 11 years my family has celebrated “Chinese Thursday”. Chinese Thursday started not long after the show “The Big Bang Theory” began. On the show, there are certain days of the week when the characters eat a particular type of meal: Mondays may be pizza, Tuesdays may be Tacos, etc. For my family Thursday night became our family night, aka Chinese Thursday.
Because we are a blended family with all of our children living with us, that meant that every other weekend the children were away with their other parent. When my husband and I married we worked out the schedule with our former spouses so that one weekend we had all four children and the opposite weekend we had no children. That made the idea of the stereo-typical “Friday night pizza night” impossible because every other weekend the children were leaving about the time Arthur and I were getting home from work.
But the Big Bang Theory fixed all of that. My family loves this show. There was someone in it for everyone. I myself am Penny. Toss out all of the relationship stuff with her character and you’ve got me. I actually work with PhD’s in Math, Computer Science, Biology, Physics and Chemistry. And I am pretty much clueless to what these people are talking about most of the time. 🙂 While the characters on the show actually have a scheduled Thai food one night, our town of Millington does not have a Thai restaurant. No problem, we adjusted that fact just a little bit and started ordering Chinese food on Thursday nights and spent the evening together as a family eating our take-out, watching the Big Bang Theory and laughing and catching up with each other.
It seems, however, that the show will end next spring. As well, next spring our youngest son is scheduled to graduate from Rhodes College (have I mentioned that already in a past post?). And I find myself in a real pickle. Exactly how am I supposed to give up both the absolute ending of my children’s childhood AND a show that kept my family connected through middle-school, high-school, college, a child battling stage-4 cancer and all of the other things that the 6 of us share and care about so deeply. We have had most all of their friends, as well as our friends and our extended families join in with us at some point for “Chinese Thursday” over the last 11 years.
AND IT IS ALL ABOUT TO END. It almost feels biblical, like the 4 horsemen from the apocalypse will be arriving at my home around May 15th, 2019 (I’m not sure yet when the last show is scheduled). The world as I know it will be completely over. No more babies. No more little boys. No more teenagers. No more people in college who still need me from time to time helping them to become grown men. And no more Big Bang Theory.
The withdrawals from these addictions have already started. And I am tackling them as we speak. Here’s how:
About a month ago, my pastor started a Thursday night group called “Prayer Through Painting”. It starts at 6pm on Thursday nights and lasts until 7-7:30pm. The location is out in Shelby Forest, a 20 minute drive from my home. Now, the Big Bang Theory comes on at 7pm on Thursdays in my area which means if I attend this weekly group, I have to miss my beloved show. And time with my family when they show up. And Chinese Thursday. (There may be more than two addictions going on here!) So I signed up. And I have shown up faithfully every week building up the strength to not be home for my addiction.
The catch here is that the new season does not start until next week. Now some of you may be saying “No Problem!, just DVR it!”. Um…PROBLEM…I don’t know how to use said thing. I’m not a big TV watcher–only this one show. But one of my boys, Jackson, has assured me that he will come over and teach Arthur how to use the DVR because Arthur has no clue either.
The other part of this is that if we do learn to use the DVR, am I really giving up my addiction to the show? Am I really giving up my addiction to my family’s past, and in particular of my children’s childhood? Will I truly start to think of them all as grown men? And let’s be serious, who am I kidding about giving up Chinese take-out?
But here-in lies the basis for the addictive problems I see in myself and others these days–we don’t realize and acknowledge addictions in our lives, we don’t deal with them properly, and we don’t let go of the past. I’ve convicted myself on all of these charges. Yet, I’m not sure I’m truly ready to let them go.
But what I am sure of is that I’m ready to try. I’m ready to remember the past fondly and lovingly all-the-while respecting the fact that my children are no longer boys. They are today, right now, grown men. It is time for their momma/step-momma to remember the one who left us early, to be proud of the man he was and the men the three remaining are today and to hope for a wonderful future with them all moving forward as equals in the adult world.
Thank God for reruns and Chinese take-out!
Where Do I Begin 