Don't try to fix me - I'm not broken, hello...
Long time readers / friends know by now that I don't "do" Christmas. For me it holds bad memories, bad juju, probably a dash of self-fulfilling prophecy, and a whole gallon of anxiety.
New people, for an outdated but still mostly valid point of reference, go here!
What most people don't know, and isn't in the linked entry above, is that Christmas Eve is just as dangerous to me as Christmas day is. Most of the stuff I've written about actually happens in the late hours / wee hours between the two.
The other thing that most people don't know is that at exactly 12:00am on December 26th, if I'm awake, I will actually breathe an audible sigh of relief. For a moment, all the tension in my body is released, because I know that no matter how rough of a Christmas season I've had, it's now over and I survived.
I didn't usually have to wait until midnight, I used to be OK once the official festivities were over, or once I was sure I'd secured a whole day to myself with no holiday obligations. But one year, I let my guard down at 11:45pm, and literally rang in the 26th physically fighting for my life (someone decided that I was wasting my life, so she'd "help" me end it), so that pretty much killed any chance at pre-midnight calm.
Last year was good, I made it through both days, I had more of a sense of family, there were no traumatizing events, and I had a concept of what my next year would look like. It was totally not the right concept, but I didn't have nearly as many things in limbo last year as I do this year.
This year, aside from the stuff in limbo, my heart was broken on x-mas eve. It was unintentional, it wasn't even personal, which almost made it harder, but my heart shattered none the less. This wasn't a romantic thing, this was my chosen family, my soul sister, basically completely shutting me out and shutting me down. She is in crisis, but we have always helped each other THROUGH the madness to the other side, never have we shut the other out. My heart hurts so much, even though my head is trying not to fault her for trying to take care of this by herself.
As for x-mas day, it was bittersweet. I said goodbye to some people for what I think will be the last time, and I'm sad to see them go. I also met new people and acquired a new nickname. All of this just reminds me that life moves in cycles. I just hate the part where one cycle ends and another is beginning and there's no freaking fast forward button OR a GPS unit.
OK, it's late, I'm rambling. I was so glad when midnight hit though, because as rough and raw as I feel, I made it, and I have things to look forward to as well as chapters to close.
I hope you all also made it through the holiday unscathed.
New people, for an outdated but still mostly valid point of reference, go here!
What most people don't know, and isn't in the linked entry above, is that Christmas Eve is just as dangerous to me as Christmas day is. Most of the stuff I've written about actually happens in the late hours / wee hours between the two.
The other thing that most people don't know is that at exactly 12:00am on December 26th, if I'm awake, I will actually breathe an audible sigh of relief. For a moment, all the tension in my body is released, because I know that no matter how rough of a Christmas season I've had, it's now over and I survived.
I didn't usually have to wait until midnight, I used to be OK once the official festivities were over, or once I was sure I'd secured a whole day to myself with no holiday obligations. But one year, I let my guard down at 11:45pm, and literally rang in the 26th physically fighting for my life (someone decided that I was wasting my life, so she'd "help" me end it), so that pretty much killed any chance at pre-midnight calm.
Last year was good, I made it through both days, I had more of a sense of family, there were no traumatizing events, and I had a concept of what my next year would look like. It was totally not the right concept, but I didn't have nearly as many things in limbo last year as I do this year.
This year, aside from the stuff in limbo, my heart was broken on x-mas eve. It was unintentional, it wasn't even personal, which almost made it harder, but my heart shattered none the less. This wasn't a romantic thing, this was my chosen family, my soul sister, basically completely shutting me out and shutting me down. She is in crisis, but we have always helped each other THROUGH the madness to the other side, never have we shut the other out. My heart hurts so much, even though my head is trying not to fault her for trying to take care of this by herself.
As for x-mas day, it was bittersweet. I said goodbye to some people for what I think will be the last time, and I'm sad to see them go. I also met new people and acquired a new nickname. All of this just reminds me that life moves in cycles. I just hate the part where one cycle ends and another is beginning and there's no freaking fast forward button OR a GPS unit.
OK, it's late, I'm rambling. I was so glad when midnight hit though, because as rough and raw as I feel, I made it, and I have things to look forward to as well as chapters to close.
I hope you all also made it through the holiday unscathed.