As the holiday season has finally come to a close, I like to reflect on how my December this year has been infinitely better than the rest.
Almost everyone I know loves the holiday season. No matter which one you celebrate, it tends to be a time for celebration where families and friends get together to share meals, gifts, a few laughs, and traditions that have been built for years. My closest friends all seem to have their own traditions and look forward to seeing people that don’t get to visit often. As the years have gone on, I can’t help but look upon all these smiling faces with envy as my experience during this time is much different.
To put it frankly, my family is broken. My holidays are forced celebrations where in December we all pretend like we don’t live completely separate lives for the other eleven months of the year. It’s a tradition that has become nothing but tedious and I dread the twinkling of the lights all around me and the forced merriment I know is expected of me. Each year that passes makes me more resentful of the people I am supposed to be enjoying time with, and I wonder if there will ever reach a time where I will have the happy holidays that everyone wishes me.
With my boyfriend, this feeling has changed. Having him around during the holidays made me happier this time of year than I have ever been, in part because he knows the cloud that settles over me once everyone else starts getting in the holiday spirit. One of the things I have come to love the most is celebrating the holidays with his family. Spending time with them helps me understand and appreciate why he is the way that he is. They welcome me into their traditions with open arms and I’m grateful to be able to consider them my family as well. For so long I yearned to be a part of something like this that so many people take for granted.
With him around I have a renewed sense of hope that this dreadful feeling I have suffered through for so many years might finally be ending. The sad truth is that I will never get to be the daughter in a loving and happy family with yearly holiday celebrations. But with him I know that one day I’ll be able to build my own family to create the memories and sense of belonging I spent so many years wishing I had. He knows how important it is to me and I know he’ll work just as hard to create something special for our future family. There are certain instances where I reflect on how happy I am that I am in a relationship, and this is certainly one of them. The holidays are not always the best time of the year, but having someone in my life that is not forced to be there makes me feel like I actually have something worth celebrating.