I just got my first two Christmas cards yesterday. Just another reminder of what a holiday loser I am. I haven't even taken my holiday card pictures, can't even find my camera. My kids won't cooperate and it was a cloudy day. Happy-looking familes were out today putting up their holiday decorations. My house sits unadorned, inside and out.
The Christmas tree I bought last year--prestrung with hundreds of lights--sits somewhere in the eaves of the rental house where I'm living. The house is a total disaster and the tree, bought for the huge home I recently vacated, won't even fit anywhere. Which means I have to go buy a new one and somehow haul it home and string the freaking lights myself.
This is my first Christmas as a single mom. I mean, theoretically, I was always a single mom, but now it's legal. Getting divorced wasn't so bad--the year-plus of financial wrangling, dealing with egomaniacal lawyers (including my ex husband), fighting over dining room furniture and dishwashers, trying to protect the children from all of it is over. But the holidays are now somewhat confused.
Oh, the ex is in love again. Match.com exquisite exotic beauty who loves beaches and sunsets, caviar and champagne, Venice during Carnivale (chick better not be honing in on my alimony!!!) For Thanksgiving I get invited to a friend's large family celebration--happy families with little children.
Ex is with the new love and misses his time with the children because her mother hurt her knee. Then he and newb girl planned to spend the weekend in Vermont. Now they're spending a week in California while I worry about Christmas cards, trees, stringing lights. My children want Rock Band. Get a text message saying the happy couple has found the elusive Rock Band so now what do I do? Are they old enough that I can just write each one a check and leave it at that?
My own woes aside, the whole holiday fiasco has just become another major stressor in the lives of just about everyone. Year after year, relentless, inescapable, it comes. With its demands, its expectations, its eventual disappointments. I can decry it, protest it, lament about it, hide from it, yet it comes nonetheless. Happy people, Christmas carols, parties, presents, lights, fancy clothes, I mean, how depressing.
So where is my spirit? Where is the meaning? Where do I find this? Is it with Karen's muse? Is it in the heart of my children and for some reason, just beyond my view? Is it nowhere? Is it everywhere? Does anyone care?
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