Christmas

I had longed to have a family my kids whole life. It was just the two of us their whole childhood. I always went way overboard for Christmas in everyway because I harbored a secret about Christmas; I hated it. When I was growing up, my father had died and a large part of my mother had died with him. Her life fell apart after he died. Going through this depression, I saw the weak parts of my mother in myself. I generally see myself as a stronger person, but this blindsided me. My father had been ill, my mother had time to prepare herself and her three kids for how to go on after his death. She didn’t do well with it, she still doesn’t, nearly 30 years later. I fear I will be like that. One Christmas, growing up, after my father had died, I don’t know if there wasn’t any money, or my mother forgot, but there weren’t any presents. I know, Christmas isn’t about presents. That imagine has stuck with me. I never, ever wanted my kids to have that, so I have always gone over the top for Christmas. Not so much with presents, but just dressing for it, being into it, the whole illusion of it. The whole while, I actually can’t stand it. Once I started dating my husband and our dysfunctional little family was made, I started to enjoy it more. I had someone to spend it with. Different memories to make. I could hide those old memories of my youth. I had Christmas sweaters for the month of December to wear. I loved Christmas lights. I loved to look at them with my husband. They filled me with warmth. This year they filled me with a cold rage.

I could barely Christmas shop for my kids this Christmas. My heart wasn’t in it. I never make lists for presents, but I found that I had to this year because I just couldn’t remember anything I had bought. It was just like everything else, I was going through the motions. I found going into the stores complete torture, so I shopped online. The only joint money I had access to was my husband’s Target card, so I bought most of the presents there. He changed the card on me right after Christmas time, I believe it was, essentially cutting me off of all finances. (We never had joint accounts because I didn’t want them. I sure was kicking myself now)

The month I had been out of the psych ward, had been the longest and the shortest month of my life. Time dragged and flew by. Christmas morning had snuck up on me. I had few presents wrapped. I had spent all night talking to a stranger about my marriage’s failings. My kid was coming over in a few hours to “celebrate” Christmas. I had barely slept. My mind was spinning. I didn’t know what to do with all the information I had been given overnight. I did know I had to pull it together some, at least get the presents wrapped.

I had seen my husband once intentionally over that month. We had gotten a snow storm and I had to ask for my snow boots. If he was a decent man, he would have offered them to me, but at this point, we know he isn’t. So, he brought over two boxes of stuff that he had packed. I freaked out. I am pretty sure I yelled. All I wanted was my snow boots. He had packed most of (not all mind you) my shoes, coats, and scarves into these two boxes. He had also tried to pack some breakables into the scarves. Glassblowings that I had made. One of them had broken. With the boots and shoes. I was so upset. There was also a pair of women’s underwear shoved into a sock in the box. A pair of medium women’s underwear. It was my sock. Not my underwear. I don’t wear a medium. Not my brand. Not my size. Also dirty. All very odd. I texted him upset. Of course he saw nothing wrong with any of it. I told him to stop packing my stuff. He had also put in the boxes stuff that was his, not mine, and one of the kid’s. But he’s too self involved to know what is and isn’t mine. To remember what had been given to him as presents.

I struggled through Christmas with my child, mom and sibling. They started sassing me during dinner about how slowly I was eating, which made me not want to eat anymore. I am at baseline a slow eater, but throughout my heartbreak, I have become painfully slow at eating. I drink my calories more than anything. I’m not hungry. I have no appetite. My mind wandered to what he was doing. When he was doing her under the Christmas tree at my house. My stomach would lurch and threaten to evacuate everything in it. Every little movement I made my kid would jump like I was a China doll ready to fall off a shelf. It couldn’t have been easy for them to watch, their mother falling apart in front of their eyes. I tried to hold it together, but I just couldn’t. They gave me a mug with a note in it for a present that made me sob. That was my Christmas. I sat there in a daze and watched everyone around me opening their things, trying to feel something other than the raw emptiness that consumed me. I couldn’t muster any other feeling up.

My mind was preoccupied with what I had learned the night before. I had spent part of the day messaging with the boyfriend about odd things. It felt nice to have someone in my “corner”. Someone who understood where I was coming from. That I had this odd love of someone who wasn’t deserving of it. But I was now faced with a dilemma of my own; do I present this information to my husband, that his beloved girlfriend had been gaslighting him? Lying to his face? Do I tell him that she had a boyfriend? That I had figured out why it didn’t settle well with me? That I wasn’t actually nuts? That he was throwing his life away for someone who lied?

I felt vindicated knowing that she was a liar, like him. That they were two peas in a pod. That by itself made me feel a little better knowing that it couldn’t possibly go far. But it also meant that that she was a manipulator like him. That it would certainly blow up, but would their lies come out into the open without help? I had to come to a decision of whether I should tell him or not. That she had a boyfriend. What did I do with that information? Hurting him with this definitely had its appeal but it also had it’s own set of problems that came with it. It was all in black and white though- nothing he couldn’t find himself. That they weren’t really roommates. My husband had ruined my birthday. Thanksgiving. Now Christmas. New Years was being threatened. The thought of someone else with him made my stomach churn. Even if it was the same thing that had upended my family. It didn’t make it easier to me. Maybe if he could see she was just like him; a liar, he would start to see what harm he was causing to all of us. I couldn’t begin to know. He had turned partially into a mystery to me. A predictable mystery, but a mystery.

I got to see 2/3 kids on Christmas, which was a win to me. I lay on my bed and listened to them play video games and felt relief wash over me. For the first time since I’d been out it brought a sense of normalcy to me. It made me feel like I was among the living hearing those sounds. I knew my husband didn’t get to see any of the kids on Christmas Day and I didn’t know if he cared, but I did on both accounts. I didn’t know if he got the pangs I did, if he needed to have that feeling of normalcy like me. I got it on Christmas. I think for the first time since I’d left home. The comfort of hearing the kids be kids. Unwitnessed fun, being listened to from nearby by their parent of them just being kids instead of the “adults” they pretended to be at college. I burst into silent tears again and let them slide down my face but felt at ease with the familiar noises I was being surrounded by. If only my mind and heart could be as comforted as my ears.