Glad That's Over

I have to say, that was...You know, I am WELL aware that I have no right to be unhappy. But man, I really, really was. I just wanted to come home last night, and the night before...

Not that I didn't enjoy the company of the various relatives at my aunt-in-law's house--particularly the ones my age and younger. My various semi-cousins are really fun people, and their kids, who were toddlers or babies in bouncy-seats last time I saw them, are now ACTUAL LITTLE HUMANS, running around being wild (three-year-old boys) or little six-year-old girls showing off their twirly-skirted dress and Christmas toys. Christmas is one of the few times I think Hey, maybe I COULD do this having-kids thing...then I think, what crack am I smoking? Because first of all, see, that requires a partner, or at least someone willing to loan me a turkey baster....

And it's not that I didn't take some pleasure in working with my mom on the potato dish we'd promised to bring along, which necessitated an entire Christmas Eve of cooking and preparing(the end result of which was oh-my-god delicious, if you ask me, much like the rest of the dinner...My aunt-in-law's house is a WONDERFUL place to spend the holidays if you like to eat. I highly recommend it).

But Christmas Eve at Mom's, when it got to be bedtime, and I tucked myself into that same room where I've spent all the failures of my adult life, and thought about JP and what might have been (again, for the four-billionth time)...

Or on Christmas morning, when I feigned enthusiasm for clothes I already know I'm never going to wear, because Christmas is the time my mother tries most subtly to change me, even though I know it's done (mostly) out of love...

Or facing up to the fact that my mom is reaching the state my grandmother reached eventually, where the super-strict standards of housekeeping start to slip because she doesn't see the dust, or it hurts her back too much to bend down to scrub, or any number of other signs that remind me how old, exactly, she's getting...

Or when answering the innocent question "Oh, so you moved?" from people who hadn't heard the story, or listening to Mom practically BRAGGING, now that it's over, that I'd survived living on the West Side..."But she never had a problem the whole time she was there, surprisingly," I heard her tell someone...this from the same woman who begged me for four years to tell her family that I was still living in Rogers Park...

...or listening to the politics out in the main dining room, from the comfort and safety of the "kids' table" where most of the twenty- and thirty-somethings had landed just out of habit...

I know I have nothing to be unhappy about....but really, all I wanted for Christmas was just peace and quiet, mainly; or maybe just "quiet", since "peace" these days seems to be a little bit out of reach.

(A day off work would have been nice too, though I was heartened somewhat by how many of the rest of my age-bracket had to go to work this morning too. Seriously, though--How much does that suck??? WORK, on the day after Christmas??? Aren't we supposed to go out and shore up the economy with further mindless consumption today??? Doesn't the retail sector count for ANYTHING???)

I have a lot to feel thankful for, I know. I'm just having a hard time mustering the energy to feel it.