Merry Christmas, Here's To Many More

Well, it's that time of year again folks.  Time for turkey, Christmas lights, long nights with friends and family, and crippling seasonal depression that makes me want to padlock the door and hide until it's all over.  I wish I could pinpoint what it is exactly about these cold months that make me so uneasy and anxious, but I suppose it's just a combination of everything.  From the financial stress of coming up with the perfect presents for the people in my life that deserve nothing less, to sitting around a dinner table with family trying not to feel like that 16 year old girl who fears she's incredibly misunderstood, or worse, ignored.

It doesn't help that for the past two holiday seasons I have found myself wondering if it will be my last spending them with my father.  And it increases the pressure I put on myself to not be the sullen, black sheep that shows up to most family functions. But fear alone doesn't change the self-doubt I have that the person pounding red wine at Christmas year after year isn't the person my family would want or hope for me to be.  Or the fact that when my siblings show up with their significant others, their new families, I still sit alone.

Ah yes, another holiday season sans boyfriend.  Another Christmas without someone to hold my hand through my typical anxiety, to share a midnight kiss with on New Years, to hold me close watching "It's a Wonderful Life" on Christmas eve, to put on a slutty Ms. Claus outfit for, and to be my plus one at the company holiday party.  I could name just as many summer-time activities that suck without a significant other, but the weather seems to make the winter ones that much more lonely.

So I'll put up my tree alone another year - a tradition that is both comforting and incredibly sad. I will turn on Reliant K's "Let It Snow, Baby...Let It Reindeer", because it's a beautiful Christmas album that has made me feel less alone each December every year since I was 18.  And I will continue to spend another year ending fighting the urge to shut down and close off from the amazing people in my life that battle me and struggle constantly to stay close to me.  The kind, selfless family of people I hold near and dear to me through 3 other seasons, that I become incredibly fearful of showing a broken Katie Keller to through the months of November through February. Because for what ever reason, chemically or psychologically, these aren't my best months.  And I know that.  So I can, as always, either hold myself accountable to the self-awareness I possess, or make the same mistakes over and over until these blogs can simply be copied and pasted from year to year.

So, with that said, Happy Holidays everybody.  I'm trying.