Eat, Drink & Go Crazy
Every fall I go a little nuts.
With the holidays breathing their jolly, nutmeg-scented breaths down my neck, a dread particular to Thanksgiving and Christmas settles like molasses in my veins and I stress. I seethe. I fear. It started back when I worked in transportation, when Thanksgiving was condensed into a few manic, tryptophan-soaked hours of food and drinks and at least three parties to hit before driving two hours through freshly-fallen snow with a turkey hangover and one glass of wine too many just to get back to work to ensure the store shelves stayed stocked for all of those coveted Black Friday sales.
It was too much work so I started opting out of Thanksgiving and enjoying something decadent—my own pan of baked mac n’ cheese, perhaps—with a glass of pinot noir and a good holiday movie alone.
After I left transportation, opting out was no longer acceptable. And after having a kid, it was downright forbidden.
My return to the holiday fray is usually marked by a twisting in my guts around the second week of November, as hunting season looms and holiday expectations start filling the calendar. I drown myself in Christmas music and movie classics, telling myself that THIS YEAR I don’t need to stress. THIS YEAR I’ll remember the magic of the holidays—if not for my sake, then for my son—and enjoy myself. THIS YEAR will be different (not like 2018 when I spent Christmas balled up in the fetal position in my husband’s childhood bedroom; a scope found nothing structurally wrong in my guts because stress knots—while agonizing—don’t register on the tiny camera the docs snaked down my throat).
I digress.
The thing is, this year WAS different.
It started the same. The knot of anxiety showed up on schedule, and I had my first mini meltdown five days into hunting season. Then…
Then, instead of hiding behind the layers of stress and resentment that seemed inevitable as the holidays approached, I faced the sources of stress and turned resentment into understanding, appreciation, and love. I spoke my truth to the people who needed to hear it—myself included.
Myself, most importantly.
It didn’t always go well.
But because I was feeling brave, the Powers-That-Be rose to the challenge and tested me. Over and over again. And not just because I was brave, but because I was ready. And because I didn’t want another year with a scope down my throat, or another holiday where I couldn’t feel the love because I was in too much pain—physical or otherwise.
Mostly otherwise.
And because I blog, I wrote it all down. What I quickly came to understand was the source of all these bad feelings had nothing to do with the wonderful people who actually wanted to spend time with me (surprisingly, there are still a few left after this year) and everything to do with a total lack of self-worth that translated calendar invites and holiday expectations—joyous events worth celebrating—into breeches of the fortress I’ve crafted around myself to protect my sanity and my time.
Fortress walls that are old and crumbling and ready to come down…with well-placed cannons remaining to maintain reasonable boundaries based on self-love and self-respect rather than fear.
“When people refuse to deal with their own inner negativity, they tend to increasingly see others as a threat. ”
The posts that follow were easy to write but hard to share. They’re raw and ridiculous and probably make me sound like a lunatic (still working through shame cycles, and fear about what everyone will think of me is part of it). I’m afraid to share these posts because they are the parts of myself I’ve tried desperately to hide. But I’m going to share them for precisely that reason:
I’m done hiding. For better or worse, here I am.
You’ve been warned. Here goes nothing. Here goes Everything.