Holiday Blues

Pic Cred: ME!

It’s really, really hard not to write about politics. I mean downright impossible at times since it’s so predominant right now, regardless of whether it’s here or anywhere else outside the boundaries of the good ol’ USA.

But I don’t want that in my blog…well not totally. I know me well enough, when I get enough into the feels about anything, I’ll write about it, particularly when I’m in a certain state of rage. Still you won’t see a lot of rants here because after I write out my anger-laden thoughts, I let it stew for a bit. After I return to the piece, inevitably I decide not to hit the post button. Fact is, the world around us is pretty icky regardless of whether I blog about it or not. As soon as I turn off the laptop, the realness and injustices, the straight up ugly is right there waiting. So I thought, why though should I let it be so very prevalent? I need to control this shiz, allow it to gain entry only where I want, not anywhere it wants. To that end, instead of letting this anger and growing hatred for everyone around me to overtake all aspects of existence as I know it, I’m going to (try to) use this blog, at least, as my escapism. Not that I haven’t been doing this since the beginning but I noted that since 2016 I’ve felt more of an instinct to post tirades than anything else. Now that I give it some thought, possibly I haven’t kept this medium up simply because there’s just nothing positive to say. What’s the point if I have nothing original to contribute?

With the best of intentions, and the occasional slip-ups, I forge forward with the hope that whatever gets put on this blog will be edifying, interesting, funny, observations or the equal likes as opposed to angry verbal diarrhea.

What’s first?

Let’s talk about the obvious.

Holiday’s are here which includes everything that is cinnamon flavored, twinkling lights and lots and lots of traffic.

Holy cow, the traffic. It makes one teeter on the edge of madness if they sit in it long enough. While I hold a deep distaste for it myself, I do love this time of year with all the sites and sounds. I am, however, not one of those folks who start to celebrate it as soon as Halloween is over. Personally, every holiday should be the star of it’s own, every season should receive it’s due. Maybe I feel this way also because of a deeply personal reason…

You see, my mother decided to give me birth on the very day a good portion of the populace is celebrating (whether religiously or as a token) Christmas.

Yup, yours truly is a Christmas baby.

Are you wondering if this is a good or bad thing? To be truthful, in parts it is both. I love and hate it all at the same time.

Imagine the child I was who used to see the decorations and present buying fury and assume it was all for me, only to be disappointed when eventually I was told it was for the birth of Prophet Isa (Jesus) (PBUH). This made little sense to me as a young tyke. Was he actually being given the gifts? Where was he to receive them? Didn’t he pass away ages ago? Then why were folks giving each other gifts instead of praying or doing something else like spending all that money on feeding the poor and stuff? How did gift giving even play into it and what about the other things like Santa Claus or even the much beloved decorations?

Suffice it to say, I was a weird child who had an annoying penchant to ask a lot of questions that were not easily Google-able because there was no such thing back then. I feel a lot of sympathy for my parents in a way to have had to deal with me.

Anyhow, the good of it is that well…I always get my birthday off. And others, throughout the year, always gasp when I tell them or they note, that my birthday is on the 25^th. I guess this last thing is good, right?

But there’s way more bad. Let me list a few:

Everything is closed (or it used to be but less now)

People straight up forget because they’re busy celebrating

Dual gifts (this would be more difficult if I were Christian but since I don’t celebrate Christmas, it’s less bad)

No one is usually around

Those are the obvious things which if you ask any other Christmas babies, they’d likely agree. Then there are the specific and personal reason for me which is…childlessness.

I am about to turn 47, I get a few months in which to remind me that I’m getting older, pointing precisely to the very day it’ll happen. Now let me clarify, aging doesn’t actually matter to me. I’m proud of every single wrinkle I have. I thank God for every day that’s been gifted to me because it’s a day more than anyone who passed had, so I’m not being an ungrateful boob about it. On a more personal level, it’s just a reminder that I move further and further away from being able to give birth to a child of my own, although I think that ship sailed long ago, thanks to my biology. But it is what it is.

Yeah, so here I am. A few days away from another turn around the sun and it’s both painful and sad. I could focus on the sad, which is so easy to do, but there’s little point in it. Nothing will actually change the situation of my life, at least not the birthing of my own child. I know all the other alternatives, I don’t need to or want to talk about that at this point. We all have our own crosses to bear and some aren’t for public consumption as this one is not.

How am I dispelling some of these blues?

I’m not. It’s there but I forget sometimes to be sad when I’m with someone I care about, when I’m laughing, when I’m sipping on some awesome peppermint-y drink, when I’m gazing at twinkling lights because I’m a sucker for them, or when I’m watching a movie that is totally unrealistic but that’s okay also.

Look the holidays are a struggle for a lot of people so mine are not unique. They are, however, mine and I make no excuses for them. I just try to work around them. Next season, I’ll have another reason to be in funkatude so I mean, what’s new, right?

Before I sign off, I asked my loved one: you’re not in the spirit of these holidays are you?

His response (and I’m paraphrasing): I like this season just fine, and enjoy the lights and foods and stuff but I hate that I have to be in a good mood, that I should feel a certain way otherwise I’m not doing this right.

He gave me pause to think and reflect. He’s right. No one should be forced to feel something or some way. We should not give into the commercialism of what Christmas has become or what silly movies or commercials tell us we should be doing. Instead, we need to be free to define it as we wish, with no blowback for it.

I’m going to go ahead and keep on moving forward with this month as I have always done. I’m probably going to go and gawk at some houses bedecked and wonder at their electricity bill. I’ll definitely be sipping on hot chocolate somewhere outside because that’s what I love to do and I’ll relentlessly sing Christmas carols under my breath even as I grit my teeth. I most likely will go to the mall, despite the chaos, just to watch others shop and I will sit next to my own tree and gaze up at it and make a few wishes. And yup, I’ll cry a little because I don’t have a kid that I can share this with. Don’t feel bad for me, we all have stories, I’m just letting you into mine.

And I guarantee you that by January, my bipolar ass probably will be wishing for a rewind because January is definitely always the bridesmaid and never ever the winter bride.

For now, I leave you with a happy holidays. Much love.