December has always been a bad month for me. Well always is an overstatement, since december was fine up until a few years ago, four or five if you want to get specific. That was the first christmas where it was just my father and I. The rest of the family was leagues away, split.
That very first christmas, we didn't really celebrate, instead we went on a small vacation. First marakesh, then paris and finally stopped in brussels where my dads friend invited us for a misfit christmas dinner. No one there was blood related, it was just a bunch of people who didn't have any family to spend the holidays with so they made one big dinner party. That didn't feel like christmas, instead I took it as a party where I got to meet quite a few interesting people.
The following year was more christmas like, my grandmother, father and I went over to our first cousins house. This was new and something that we'd never done before, but it also just felt like a formal dinner occasion. Where everyone ignored my snobby aunt and enjoyed the delicious food. This felt more like thanksgiving for me, so that's how I treated it.
The next year my brother came for the holidays so we took another trip, this time with my dads friend and his son. We went to the mountains, visited the local area and passed the time by enjoying ourselves. That year christmas passed without much notice.
It was after this year that I started to forget the date of christmas eve and start to loath christmas songs more than I did before. Now last year was where my emotions for this holiday seemed to have cemented. I went back to the states. It was only two weeks, but it was an emotional roller coaster. Everyone tried to act like we used to, 7 or 8 years ago, before the move. Let us all be merry and pretend everything is right with the world, but hidden underneath were just bottled up negative emotions that seemed to burst every evening.
This was the only time I eagerly took up alcohol. It was christmas day and I spent most of it with a small buzz, not enough to make me feel it the next day or lose any control of myself, but enough to give me some 'liquid support.' I was relieved when I didn't have to spend new years with my relatives and even more so when I left not three days later. It's an experience I never really want to repeat.
Now it's December again, the time everyone seems to be fucking merry and I just want to curl into a ball and hide away till the new year. I hate when my brain brings up old memories of 'happier' days or when a christmas carol gets stuck in my head. I want to bash my brain against the wall till it stops, the song or my heart. Despite all of this I still have to function, still have to move forward and just try not to focus on anything from the past.
It helps that my father has pretty much completely dropped any christmas 'traditions' that we once did and doesn't force me into anything. The only thing my father knows is that I don't like the holidays anymore, so he doesn't expect me to take part in them. The only thing I'm obligated to do is eat dinner with my grandmother and her family, our family. The rest of the time I just focus on trying to get through the month and instead of resorting to past measure I have discover a different method that is less ugh, scaring.
I have a binder that almost completely flattens me, with the correct shirt it's hard to tell if I have anything there at all. This is key to my method, because this is what helps me become Mati. Who's Matis? Well they are a genderless individual, who doesn't mind if you refer to them as a male or female. They have no family and are just an average human being. Mati doesn't have problems with their emotions, doesn't have a dark history, doesn't really talk much, doesn't have anyone in their live.
Mati is Mati and they just exist. It seems very silly, but this helps me out on tough days. If Nast can't get out of bed, than let Mati face the world instead. It's easier that way, better than letting the darkness creep back in.
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