Thanksgiving and Other Holidays

I don't go home for holidays. I stopped sometime in 2008. Christmas 2007 was the final straw and my attempt to give it one more chance at easter 2008 helped me to confirm that it's just better for everyone if I don't go. It feels like my mom and sister set these impossibly high standards for holiday magic and when those standards are not met, it comes crashing down in a fiery explosion of blame directed at me. I'm not going to air out my family's dirty laundry, but due to the dynamics in my family, whether I am to blame or not, the blame often falls on me anyway because I'm the easiest scapegoat. That's my role in the family: troublemaker... whether I did it or not.

So now I just go on trips elsewhere without my family. In fact, I try to get away as far as I am capable on holidays. Last Christmas I spent with my Jewish friends across the country. This Thanksgiving I'll be in San Francisco. I'll go to London for Christmas/New Years. My parents may "miss" me, but I know that they are much happier missing me than having me come home and ruin everything. I'm not feeling sorry for myself or anything. I really am a walking disaster. I tend to say the wrong things, most people don't get my sense of humor, I'm opinionated, etc. I always end up with my foot in my mouth even when I'm walking one egg shells so the best thing to do is to not be present and let my mom and my sister fight it out with each other over their failure to accomplish Mission: Impossible Magical Christmas.

To add to the catastrophe that is my family, my grandmother was remarried in (what I think was) 2008. She married this guy that-- we don't like. And whatever, if she's happy then great. But her marriage to this guy kind of split up the extended family who were very close prior to that. There's been intense tension ever since and I haven't been able to make myself go to her house since she got married. The last time I was there was Christmas 2007 and I accidentally got drunk before going. I was so upset about her future husband being there and breaking up our family that I thought it might make me feel better to have some Rum. It turned out to be half a bottle of rum and that's only ONE of the ways I ruined that Christmas. I know that if I go to a holiday at her house it's just going to be far too stressful for me. People will want to catch up-- and I really don't feel like recapping the past 3 years for these people because they've been really bad/stressful and no one is going to understand my life and I just don't want to talk about school. Plus, I know I will smack my grandmother's husband when he inevitably opens his mouth and says something idiotic (which is every time he speaks). So, no. I'm proactive and I excuse myself from this side of the country.

I may never have any more holiday memories with my family but it's far better than having holiday memories that you have to drink to forget.