NO HO HO MERRY CHRISTMAS!! - guest blog from adoptee Angela
Does the thought of Christmas send your emotions into your stomach where it lurches and churns?
Today is December 01st, and despite the fact that my bestest friends know I do not ‘like’ Christmas they still insist ‘oh you must come to us – maybe just Boxing Day’. The thought is so incredibly kind but unintentionally it makes me feel downright miserable and a touch guilty that I don’t just buckle up and fake it till I make it.
I thought at the grand age of 56 and three quarters that I would try to explain how I feel and why.
As an adoptee this incredibly invasive time of year with ‘happy families’ being pushed at you left, right and centre is difficult. I even asked the lady at the petrol station to turn off her Christmas music – yes I know – bah humbug!
Friends and family do try and be supportive and understanding, but they are not quite sure of what or why. There is always an invitation there hanging in the air in the event that you make a ‘miraculous’ recovery from the morose and melancholy which December is guaranteed to bring.
In essence, I said, Christmas Day is the acknowledgment of a loss for me, a deep seated and familiar grief that I am not right. I am not right because I have always been with the wrong people. Loving people but wrong people. My body knows it as the melancholy seeps in and I feel a deep desire to wallow and enter that place where my loss is felt the most. I tend to it and acknowledge it and – finally – I know that it is okay to visit this place where all the sorrow lives to honour my loss fully and completely.
By New Year the damage which Christmas has done starts to dissipate somewhat– like a breath being let go. New Year means new possibilities. Some room for optimism again and looking forward rather watching myself drag around the sorrow of the past. The optimism is a different part of me which has been dormant during the festive season, but it is a breath of fresh air to help re-charge and balance the up and down nature of the deep seated and primal emotions I lug around.
After this explanation my friends were so very kind and understanding. I don’t know, but I think they feel like they can help me feel better but not ‘missing out’. But missing it is the point.
So in our house December 25th will consist of a nice long doggie walk, and then lots of marmite toast and tea in front of a plethora of 007 films – with not a Christmas advert in site – hoorah!!
Enjoy your season of wallowing.
Angela R.