NEXT!

Made it through another holiday season-barely. I just always get so depressed during the holidays, but this year I’m trying to reach out more and not just stewing in silence. That’s tough for me to do b/c my very first reaction to anyone ever asking me “what’s wrong?” is “NOTHING!”, even as I’m laying in the fetal position, murmuring and rocking from side to side. But this is not a new thing. I’ve had my bouts of melancholy, and they mostly have to do w/feelings of isolation, and that is always exacerbated by the holiday season, as if being a single, nobody-wants-me loser is somehow more manageable during the other 50 weeks out of the year. And yet somehow it is…. ?? But you can’t peg it all on “nurture”, or some kind of fatalistic, self-fulfilling prophecy. Every year my mom loves to tell the story of my fourth Christmas whereupon the 2nd attempt to rouse me in order to celebrate all the joys Christmas morning has to offer, I stomped into the living room, sulkily tore open all my gifts, grabbed the natty Oscar the Grouch doll I had schlepped everywhere for the previous year (fitting, eh?), and stomped back to my room where I slammed the door shut behind me. I guess I was just destined to be a Grinch.

Now, you may say that I wasn’t ALWAYS single during the holidays, what with me previously being in a 4-yr relationship, but my folks and my ex didn’t get along. I’ve always wanted to go to midnight mass with someone I loved. I want to sit with my family on Christmas Eve while sipping on homemade hot chocolate (not that powdered crap that comes in pouches), or eggnog AND be able to adoringly gaze into the eyes of my sweetie. Or maybe giving that “Clint Eastwood” squint of mine for any behavior that is not Nieto-approved. Ha ha! I’m just saying that I’m not looking for perfection, but I just want to feel whole on Christmas. Not fragmented by having a loving family beside me and a boyfriend in another town, or vice versa because what ends up happening is that no matter where you are, or who you’re with, you always feel guilty when you’re spending time with one and not the other. And that was how every special occasion always felt while I was coupled up. (Except Valentines Day-parents have no place in all that.)

And this year was particularly difficult b/c I did, in fact, have a boyfriend when the Christmas season BEGAN, however I came out the other side single as the day I was born. I’m not good at breaking up; I do the whole woman thing of “how did I fuck that up?” with little to no regard for the fact that our goals, perspectives on life, and personalities in general are largely incongruent. But he was 6’ 3 and he had green eyes!!! Sigh….. I did learn that there’s just no way I can date a man who already has kids. This guy only had one of his girls, who was 17-yrs-old and was actually a sweet, cool, well behaved kid. And I STILL couldn’t handle that shit! If I don’t want to hang out in a mall for 4 hrs on a Saturday, then I DON’T WANNA! I don’t care if he promised her she could take a couple of friends to do her Christmas shopping, when all I want to do is go home, pop in a DVD and lounge around so that I can curl up in my baby’s arms, smooch, and I can pet his fuzzy tummy to my hearts content. But nooooooooo. I made the best of it; we people watched mostly, but it didn’t make me happy. That was never going to get better.

And I’ve been so down for the past two weeks that despite the fact that I am packed to the gills with booze (beer, vodka, AND wine) and have nothing but time on my hands as I am on my Christmas vacation, I got drunk exactly one time during the Christmas holidays (thank you much, Eric, you’re a king among men!), which just doesn’t fit. When I get upset I just can’t seem to make my mouth work. No really! I don’t want to eat, or drink, or talk, or anything. I just want to sit and NOT eat and NOT drink and NOT talk. (Only plus, I’ve lost 7 lbs!) This is why I just turn inward; who the hell wants to hang out with someone who won't open their mouth? I didn’t even go out for New Years Eve! Despite a couple of invites to do shit, I elected to stay at home (and not eat, drink, or talk). And on New Years Day I guess I finally turned that corner because for some stupid reason I started drinking beer at 2:30 in the afternoon and didn’t stop until midnight. The week and half of paid vacation was all spent sober and sullen and I decide to give myself a hangover for the first day back at work! Did I mention that I also have THE meeting with THE bigwigs on Friday, and have to get all kinds of stats together for a presentation? In two days. Well…now one b/c I only sobered up around 2pm this afternoon.

I’m thinking 2008 is going to be my year to make awful decisions, but at least it’ll be better than ’07 when I didn’t make any decisions at all.