Hopeless Holidays

As far as holidays are concerned, they can more or less kiss my ass. This, of course is just a temporary fleeting thing. I hope.

Listen, I'm all about rituals, predictability and repetition. The thing is, even as consistent as a calendar date can be, the holidays themselves are never this way.

Let me start off by saying I have recently come to the realization that a shitty dysfunctional family is better than no family at all. I have operated under the assumption that everyone's family was just so much more put together than my own for far too long. I have many friends (people I know actually ) with no family. No parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, grannys or gramps. This has started to, however unwillingly, snuggle me under a blanket full of guilt- terribly uncomfortably I might add-every time I think of uttering the tiniest bit of complacency about the barren branches of my family tree.

I am 36 years old and since 35 is the new 25, I feel its not too late to turn over this new leaf.

But time changes people. In the same way I finally made my dive into deliverance, I unexpectedly encountered some twists in my family members allegiance.

It all started Christmas Eve with an exchange of gifts that well, didn't include me. I'm old enough to understand that its not all about the gifts, but honestly I would have been happy walking out with a toothbrush at that point. Leaving empty handed made me feel a particular kind of sadness-not the no gift part-but feeling like nobody really thought about me. To add insult to injury a few things I purchased for an unnamed member ended up crumbled up in a ball behind the lazy boy- directly next to my rekindled hope for family and holidays.

So after Christmas Eve was a wash, I decided to shrug it off and start new bright and early-5am to be exact-until my son decided he had other plans and woke up sick. On Christmas. Such a disappointment.

Turns out that a few of us came down with food poisoning from a pie that may or may not have been past its expiration.

At any rate, I spent the whole day in my pajamas sulking. My plans were derailed and that sent me into a kind of downward spiral common in Aspies. Not only had I already been let down the day before and made the attempt to boost my own spirits purely on a new days expectations, it was happening all over again.

I sat in bed thinking of all the ways everything around me sucked, scrolling through social media news feeds with my jaw clenched bearing witness to the rest of the world's happiness while simultaneously reminding myself to stay grateful and present. So much for that.

Good news is I got over it. With some extra sleep and cookies things started to return to almost normal over on my end of the spectrum.

I am not looking forward to the next holiday, however, and will be making an attempt at a real life disappearing act-at least until after the ball drops. Because once the media driven madness comes down to a dull roar, I can return to my musings and my life as a cynical spectator. Until next time. Stay weird.