Raw. Thats the only way I can describe my the way I feel right now. Raw to the touch, raw skin, raw bones, raw brain, raw emotions. If I had to put it into words the only way I can come close to describing it is as if someone peeled the top layer of my skin off and put me out in the sun for a few hours. Wait...no, the sun would be a welcome feeling right now. Instead, I get days on end of rains. Dark, brutal, never stopping rains. So, maybe take that skinning and put me outside for the last few days. I believe its called Chinese Water Torture.
Theres so many different things that attribute to it all. And no one is to blame. It's just that time of year I suppose. All I see are photos of people with their loved ones, people excited about the season and what it means. I don't have those things to be excited about. I am 34, unmarried, childless (by choice) and have absolutely no want whatsoever to go home to my parents for Christmas. I know how this sounds, brutal- right? It's not that I don't like my family. That's not it at all. I love them, I really do. But there's a fear factor to it all. Going home means facing the fear of what could become. The Ghost of Christmas Future per se. To me it feels like the scene from Pretty In Pink where Molly Ringwald is trying to tell Andrew McCarthy not to take her home and after several attempts, she emotionally outbursts "I don't want you to see where I live!" That's how I feel, but its me that I don't want to see it. It has nothing to do with being ashamed or not respecting everything my parents have worked for and accomplished. It is simply that I am a very different person than basically the rest of my family. I had stars in my eyes from the time I was a wee little person. I always wanted for the bright lights, big city. I had a small trip and fall when i was in college and almost got sucked into everything that I didn't ever want. The house out in the middle of no where, the screaming kids, the mundane job. But somehow I still felt something in the pit of my stomach. That there was more. Going home is a reminder that no matter how hard I work, I will forever have the fear that someday it could all just disappear and that could be the life that I am somehow forced to live. I can't explain why I fear it so much, it's just something that's there. Like a bad dream where you wake up living someone else's life. If I were to wake up in Kansas on Christmas morning, that would be the panic attack inducing first thought that would come to my mind. I wish that life were like the movies where every sweet Kansas girl looked like Reese Witherspoon and got to go home to the beautiful farm where her mom was baking a pie in the kitchen and her dad was sitting in the recliner watching TV with a classy glass of whiskey. That's not the reality of it. My parents house is 15 minutes from a convenience store, an hour from the closest Target, an hour and a half from a mall but close to a decent public school that only overlooks my adopted little brothers special needs occasionally instead of not understanding them at all and calling him a retard so I guess its an ideal place to live. My mom comes in from working 10 hours at a hospital with a McDonalds bag in her hands with two little kids trailing her more likely than not- whining. My stepdad comes home from the factory he works in and watches an hour of Star Trek or some shit before he falls asleep again because he's tired. Just plain tired. The man has worked 2 jobs for 30 years. He's just fucking exhausted.
There are no pies, there are no dogs, there's no family china. There's paper plates, bags of chips and piles of laundry. It's what the normal American middle class household probably looks like...and it scares me to death.
Tune in tomorrow for part 2 of this very uplifting holiday tale! Sorry if you think less of me now.
5 comments:
Whew...it felt really goood getting that out.
I feel the same way every time I go home. This is normal after you have moved on from one extreme to another. It's okay to look at what used to be around you and need to take a Xanax. And it doesn't mean you're better than them or look down on them...it just means you wanted something different for yourself. Different is ok. Different is good. Drive is amazing. And there isn't anything that says that if you had a husband, kids, the "more conventional" job that you'd also be living that same Kansas lifestyle. Because you wouldn't. You would have all of those things on your OWN terms. So maybe it would be a tatted-up other half with an adopted Cambodian super child and you work as lord knows what living a beyond unconventional life. I know you well enough at this point to be confident that you're not going to slip back into what used to be. You've had too many life experiences and changed too much for that to happen.
Also, I'm not sure if you feel this way, but the reason I hate going home is because everyone else makes a big deal that I am "different". You leave a world of comfort knowing you are surrounded by your friends who are quite like you and you end up in a town where everyone stares at you and your family says things like...
Aunt: You've lost so much weight!
Me: (standard answer) Yeah, I walk a lot. New York, you know?
Aunt: Are you a hooker?
Me: (blank stare)
Aunt: You know, a street walker.
(cue family errupting in laughter)
Dear "Anonymous",
I love you dearly. I hope that you know that. I am so glad that someone saw what I was trying to get across. It isn't at all that I look down on them. My parents have gone through some incredible odds to get where they are in their lives. I respect where they came from and what they became. It's just not what I am. And my fear would cause not just one Xanax but maybe a bottle. I'm just not at a place that I can do it right now. And yes, SO MUCH of it stems from that being "different." I don't shop at WalMart anymore, I drink sparkling water, i have lots of high tech gadgets, my phone never leaves my side (except when I am with boyfriend...;), i could live on sushi and Dean and Deluca coffee that I get shipped to me from the Soho store for the rest of my life. These things aren't found in a little small town in Kansas.
My conversation would closely resemble this-
Blank: You've lost so much weight!
Me: Yeah, the coffee and cigarette diet works! (nervous laugh)
Blank: What have you been eatin?
Me: hmmm...i cook a lot but I love going out for sushi!
Blank: like....raw fish? That's disgusting. (turns and walks away as if I said I ate raw babies for breakfast each morning)
Anon- I love knowing that I have someone that I can commiserate with on this subject.
I was there for that part of it. I've told you before that I thought you wanted the wedding more than you wanted the marriage. And I get it because I had one too and it is a lot of fun to put on the dress and have it be your day. But you wanted to turn and run the other way and by then you were stuck and didn't have the strength to say out loud that you didn't want it. It's over, you escaped, you've grown and figured yourself out and I think you can truly blame it all on being young, dumb and naive.
It's really more than ok to be who you have chosen to be and it's not at all your fault if others don't understand it. We haven't talked about it much but I actually hate going back too. I truly feel that once my Grandma has passed we'll start celebrating the holidays in a more non-traditional fashion...like Vegas or somewhere tropical. And for certain at least one Christmas in NYC because I've always wanted to see it all lit up. I love my family & enjoy spending time with them (well, most of them. Haha!) but that little town is wrecked and full of people I don't understand. Especially the ones who got out and did something and then went back. What the fuck for? There's nothing there! It's very depressing to see. And none of them are really doing much more than rotting away bit by bit & clinging to the delusion that what they are doing can be called living. I had no clue where I'd end up and I guess I'm somewhere in the middle because I do work a traditional 8-5 and I am married but it's because I want to be and not because I feel like I'm supposed to be. I love my life more and more every day. I'm working only so I can afford to shop the way I want & to travel and whatever. And kids are great....when they belong to other people and I can enjoy the smiles & laughs and send them back when the screaming and tears start! We have no intention of having kids and I'm so thankful we realized we didn't want them before we had them!!!
I hope G & A are over-the-moon proud of you for the strong, independent woman you are and for living the life you choose and doing it on your own terms. I know I am. xoxo
To steal a phrase from an old song, "You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run." Not everyone has the courage to walk away from a situation that they know will cause them despair in the end. Though it may hurt like hell to remove yourself from a situation like that, you must be true to yourself, rather than live a half-life and end up resenting all those who stood in the way of who you really are. Some times the unconventional path is the right one to take because, in the end, it makes you a better person. You can still love your family, even though your are not with them. They will always be a part of you. There is nothing worse than being held hostage in a life that you dread, and lets face it, life is pretty short to spend each day of it just surviving, not actually living. Not all of us are cut out to be at home with the kids and the dogs and the dress and pearls. You have touched so many lives by sharing who you are. Each day is an adventure, and your life has been full of them. I think that many people would envy who you are and what you've seen and done in your life. And remember...it is your life.
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