Christmas In June
Since we talked about sacrifices on Monday, I wanted to continue that chain with two of my favorite songs by the band AJR. They recently released a new album, and we'll talk about that song on Friday. Today, I want to focus on the song Christmas in June from the OK Orchestra album, which came out two years ago.
I've been in love with this song since I first heard it. It is all about what it means to chase a dream. It's the highs and the lows: the victories and the sacrifices. Chasing a dream is incredible, and it is demanding. The sacrifice is what makes us worthy, but that never makes it easy.
I highly recommend listening to the song, which you can do here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig-78RVSLVs but it talks about being in love with a person and being in love with a dream at the same time. The singer shares multiple scenarios where he had to choose between his love and his dream. He missed New Year's Eve, Valentine's Day, and skipped out on prom. All the while, his love stayed behind.
The chorus is the clearest part of this message, and it goes like this: "Plan on this. You're no longer gonna be the plan I miss. I won't ever let you down, but just in case. Can we do Christmas in June? Oh my God. How lucky am I to have two things I love? Makes it that much easier to fuck it up. In case I miss it, can we do Christmas in June?
I think this is something we can all relate to as military spouses. The promises and desires of our service members can often fall flat at no fault of their own. When their dream demands something, they have to go regardless of what it means missing. In military life, we end up making a lot of compromises and changes to accommodate these things. Celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays months after they happen is not unheard of because we want to have these moments with our whole family together. This is not to say that we shouldn't celebrate while they are gone, but I know many families try to celebrate again once everyone can be together.
It's easy to relate this song to the life of a military family. Our service members go, and we stay behind. But this song wholly relates to our chasing dreams as well. Just because we don't have the threat of military prison hanging over our heads doesn't mean we can say no when our dream calls. Of course, the option always exists to say no, but our servicemembers have the same choice. We get to decide whether or not to accept the consequences of saying no, and the call of a dream is hard to ignore.
The band goes on to sing, "One big day, one big show'll make 'em know my name. But if it ends up falling on our wedding day, oh, God, don't make me choose." They're singing about making it big as a band, but it applies to every one of our dreams. If a book publisher fell out of the sky and handed me a contract, I would drop everything because it's my dream. We don't get a lot of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for our dreams to come true, so we have to take them when they show up. But that day could easily come on an anniversary, graduation, wedding, or some other important life event. And we never know when that day will come, so we have to show up to every opportunity presented to us.
We don't know all the terms when we agree to chase a dream. Our service members didn't know the full extent of what serving their country would mean until the time actually came. Hearing everything they would miss upfront might not be a deal breaker for most of them because of how powerful the dream would be in every aspect of itself. But for some people, it would have been, and they would have missed out on every amazing part of that dream coming true because of it. But we don't get to see the fine print until we get there, and once we are over halfway, it is not worth it to turn back.
The song concludes with, "Hold on, love. A little longer while I get the album done. And if I get to tour it, wouldn't that be fun? But that's one less month with you. Holy shit. Now I'm sittin', thinking 'bout what else I'll miss. Darling, if we're ever gonna have a kid. Don't wanna miss it, can we just have him in June?"
As a woman, I do have the luxury of not being able to miss the birth of my child. We are allowed to put in non-negotiable and set the boundaries of what we will and will not sacrifice. We just have to understand that drawing the line may mean sacrificing some of our dream, or at least the timeline we thought it would come true along. It's easy for us to think of our dreams as the backup or something we fit into our schedule rather than the very thing we design our life around. Maybe we could all benefit from the threat of imprisonment when it comes to our dreams. We get to choose what's best for our family.
It's always up to us. We are the only way our dreams come true, and every non-negotiable puts a little more space between where we are and where we want to be. But we also get to pick what our "June" is. It's that safe space where our other dreams come first. We cannot forget that our family is our dream as well. The goal is not to have a dream come true at all costs. The goal is to have as many dreams come true as possible, which means making room for shifting timelines, negotiable, and lots of compromises. But if we maintain flexibility on one hand and commitment on the other, then we will find the balance that helps us have it all, even if it means some disappointments along the way.