It is 4:15am on Christmas Day. It's a brisk forty-five degrees and rainy tonight here in Minnesota. With no snow in sight, and I've never felt more alone. I play a terrible portrayal of a "humbug." You can hear me say how much I hate Christmas, while I stare at the Christmas aisles, as I stare at the lights. It's ironic how I love to show up for others during this time of year, but I am so consumed in sadness. Christmas always represented family to me. Although, coming from a very dysfunctional family, it doesn't make sense. Maybe I envy what I see, more than where I've been. Tonight, I'm at work, I'll be off at 7am. I need groceries today, but everything is closed, so the workers can spend time with their families. I work at an inpatient facility, so we don't get time off. I don't have any family anyway. It's kind of funny working tonight. Fifteen years ago, I would have been scared to run into Santa at this hour. I am alone here and I will be alone when I get home. I will do my dishes, I will clean the bathtub, and I will walk my dog. All with a back-breakingly-heavy heart. The black out curtains will stay shut and I'll keep the lights off. I will listen to my playlists I made on Spotify when I was 15. When I was 16. When I was 17. It's times like these that I wholeheartedly believe ignorance is bliss. Maybe things weren't easier, but they were less complicated. And all that occupies my mind are those times. And we could get into the nuances of everything, but it doesn't mean that's how it feels to me, at this moment.
Past the age of six, Christmas just became this thing my mom dreaded. She never wanted to put the tree up. She shared with me, as a single digit aged child, that she had to sell her gold jewelry for gifts, and how angry she was over it. How buying gifts for my cousins was taxing on her. How she hated wrapping gifts. The tree hadn't been up for more years than I could count. We'd go to my cousins' house in Justice. They always had two trees up and three of us kids playing. After 7, most gifts stopped being wrapped at home. At 8, Santa brought me a warm zebra Snuggie in a brown paper bag. Along with the fact of knowing he wasn't real, so my parents wouldn't need to buy me another gift.
Sometimes, I just wish I could enjoy this holiday. I'm not even religious. I just want to feel included. I don't want a sympathy invite from someone. And I don't want to give someone a list of gifts I want. I want someone to give me something, because they want to. I want someone to think of me, without me telling them to.
They clinically tell us we can do something to celebrate "us" instead of the holidays. But to be frank, it is horse shit. It's horse shit for me, at least. The last Christmas I had was in 2019. I worked all day on salads, for catering. It was fun, I knew my coworkers, unlike the year before when I had first started. I stole a cake from work to bring to Kevin's. He got me everything I ever wanted that Christmas. And I got him the same. I went home just to come back and spend Christmas day with him. We went to Speedway up on Archer, just like we always did. It was a good Christmas. Had I known what would happen 2 months later, I would've savored more moments like that.
Savoring. It's been weird looking back retrospectively, in terms of intense dread that I wish I had savored those moments more. But how are you supposed to know that these mundane days are worth it? How was I supposed to know I should've savored a 10 hour shift making salads for families? How am I supposed to know this? Not a day goes by that I don't wish to spend 20 minutes pretending like it's 2019 again.
Today I washed my dishes. I cleaned the bathtub. I walked my dog.
