As a human being, I generally think about various things — life experiences, or relationships, or classes, or musical instruments, or ideas, etc. in terms of comparison. We do that.  “School’s” always presented itself as so beyond human experience, so evolved, floating on such a high level of “fineness” that it bore no comparison to anything in our lowly and coarse “only lives”.

Ironically, since I departed the hallowed halls in 2011, I cannot help (as a lowly human) think of my life in terms of before “School” and after “School”. That tendency is never more apparent than in the holiday season — for between the years of 2006-2011, when my holiday seasons were devoured increasingly by its Christmas party, stress increased in accordance, as did the tension in my marriage, as the group wedged its way into our lowly “only-life” celebration, shoving it on to the back burner for the sake of “evolution”.

So, today is Christmas. We — myself and my little ragtag family, or the ragtag bunch as I like to call us — are roasting a chicken, gonna open presents, then some of us will go see Star Wars. We have a tree because I — as the Jewish person in the house — insist that we get one every year. I also decorate it – the boys really don’t care. There’s no pomp & circumstance, no pretension; and very little stress. I feel worlds away from the woman who let a cult devour all time between work and “class” in service to some elusive “higher purpose” — I love it. I feel so free and am so grateful to no longer be living in a cult coma.

I hope that many of you are feeling the same.