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“The
holidays are a difficult time for almost everybody,” my therapist tells me,
“let alone someone who’s been through the trauma you’ve experienced.” I know her job is, in part, to validate my
feelings, and she does, but I also seethe at the thought that I’ve become a
cliché, moping through the sparkle and cheer of Christmas and New Years, alone
and miserable about it.
When
I was single, in my life before him, I didn’t feel crappy about the
holidays. In fact, I really liked
them. I was still young enough to
consider my parents and siblings as my ‘main’ family, and to me Christmas was
about spending time with them, getting and giving gifts and eating plenty of
deliciously unhealthy food while the colored tree lights bathed the house in a
particularly Christmassy glow and Sinatra sang old holiday classics in the
background. Being with or without a
boyfriend seemed like a tangential thing: it was a bonus if I had someone to
kiss under the mistletoe, but it wasn’t the point
of the holidays.
But
after seven Christmasses spent with my ex, somehow we became our own little
family. Somewhere along the way, I lost
that nagging feeling of being the odd man out (my brother and sister had been
parts of twosomes for as long as I could remember), but along with it I lost my
resignation to that feeling. I allowed
myself to rely on our little family of two, to believe with all my heart that
it was a forever family, although of course I hoped it would expand one day. And now here I am, the odd man out all over
again, only I’m missing my tough shell of never-having-known-different. And I have to say: it’s really hard.
So
much of my relationship with my ex was based on my view of myself as somehow
different from ‘the usual girl’: I was resistant to the idea of marriage for a
long time; I considered myself to be much more independent from our
relationship than he was; I refused to listen to my instincts about his
‘lesbian friend’ because I didn’t want to be the jealous ball and chain. And now that I’m alone, I’m seeing our
relationship in a different light. I
wasn’t independent at all. I mean, yes,
in all the practical ways (job, friends, family) I was independent, but I
allowed myself to believe he would always be there for me, and it’s clear now
that that was a mistake. Nor was he as
dependent as he seemed – while I was doing absolutely everything for him
so he could focus on his final exams, he was throwing away our
barely-two-month-old engagement on some hideous excuse for a human being,
someone so worthless he stopped talking to her altogether once I found out
about their affair.
There
is a part of me that feels relieved about spending this holiday alone. I get to have one year of my twenties that’s
‘normal’ – go out and get drunk and kiss a stranger on New Year’s Eve, see
a flutter of potential in the rare attraction at a Christmas party, wear heels
and makeup for people who are new to me, who haven’t seen it all a
thousand times before. And I also feel certain
that if I can just make it through this breakup, if I can fight down the
depression bile that lurks at the base of my throat and just keep smiling and
introducing myself and being easily charming, I’ll come out the other end
stronger and more grown up, if a bit harder and more cynical.
But
of course I’d trade it all – the self-awareness, the strength, the determination to listen to my instincts, the great
dates and fun flirtations – to be spending my first Christmas with my new
husband, who I’m certain loves me and cares about me too much to ever hurt me
the way terrible people hurt decent people all the time. I’d give up this beautiful sunny ‘winter’ day
in San Francisco to be back in the frozen rain, huddling with him under an
awning and frantically searching Yelp for a good place to duck in for tea. I’d exchange all the great guys I’ve met here
for that one very flawed person I loved so much. But I don’t have that choice – like all
my other choices, he stole it from me when he destroyed my life.
So for
now, the plan is to get myself through the holidays with movies and books and
food and friends and family – distraction is my only real comfort. And hopefully the new year will bring a
little less pain, and a little more clarity, and maybe even some true, below-the-surface
happiness. Hey, a girl can hope,
right? A few months ago I wasn’t even
capable of hope, so I’ll take what I can get.
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