Home for the Holidays

It’s the most wonderful time of the year (unless you’re a climate change denier). A time where people travel all across the world to spend time with their beloved families. Regardless if you practice a specific religion or not, this is usually a festive time where most people are off work (pour one out for my nurses, hospital staff, and essential workers) and they spend time with their families eating nice meals and sometimes exchanging gifts. Social media is always flooded with pictures capturing these occasions, showcasing the new gifts, the joyous smiles on the young ones faces, and the meals (be they struggle or not) for everyone to like and comment on. Will you hear from a person whom you wanted to stay as nothing more than a memory? Likely. Will you get an annoying group message that you can’t seem to opt out of? More than likely. Will you be home for the holidays? Well this is totally dependent on what your definition of home is.

Growing up I always looked forward to being, and later, going home for the holidays. The image of family you see portrayed all on the internet and in movies was never the scene in my household. We didn’t do matching pajamas sets, Christmas cards, or even have a tree up after we moved from Leigh street as far as I can remember. My mom would cook a grand meal and we would all eat but we didn’t sit together at a table and pray to white Jesus before digging in and having hilarious, upsetting, and awkward conversations about the regular holiday dinner topics such as a person’s love life, that weird uncle some children don’t feel comfortable around, or what people are planning to do with their lives. Nope, we all got a plate and went and ate in our own preferred room or area. About the only thing we would do together was play video games. Friends and some cousins would come by and we all, barring my mom of course, would be found playing mario kart, smash bros., tekken, soul caliber, or anything where we can talk trash and assert digital dominance over each other. It wasn’t the archetypal image of the holidays but I loved it because that’s where my heart was and you know what they say about home and the heart. The sad truth is that things, as they inevitably do, change.

For the last two years I have not seen my family during the holiday seasons. Actually, the last time I was even in my house in Richmond to be able to see my mom, or brothers, or nieces, or my nephew in person was February 25th of 2018. Since then my heart has been steadily breaking in the house I purchased. Not only is my house no longer a place I want to go to for fear of seeing what was once a beautiful investment in a state that would likely bring me to tears, and not only is it a place I wouldn’t feel comfortable going until more expensive work is done to rid it of problems caused by the family I spent so much time enjoying past holidays with, but it is a place occupied by people whose previous relationships with me are so far dead that what we have now is only a fraction of what a healthy relationship with family looks like. All of these reasons have caused me to view home to be not where the heart is, but where the heart is happy and intact.

When I see images of families happy and together it honestly hurts my feelings. Not because I believe them to be happy based on outward appearances but because I realize how even the semblance of a happy family unit is something I will never have moving forward. My father’s passing was not hurtful in the sense of losing a loving father because that was not what he was. It was hurtful in the sense that no redemption story can ever be created and no positive relationship between us can ever be formed. The finality of death puts a period on a relationship with that party with no hope of editing the statement and replacing it with a comma or even a semicolon. When it comes to my mother, my heart aches for many different reasons. My mom was always one of my best friends growing up. I spent more time laughing and joking with her than with my own brothers. She has sacrificed much and helped me during very tumultuous times whether it was emotionally or financially (even at the cost of her own financial well being).Those memories are cherished and will never be forgotten or sullied. What breaks my heart is that as I grew older, I started to realize things that weren’t healthy to deal with which caused me to have to set difficult boundaries. These boundaries have effectively caused our relationship to be a deformed shadow of what I ever imagined it would possibly be and it hurts because it is something wholly controlled by me. I will always love my mom and brothers but I know the boundaries I set are for the best for my mental, financial, and physical well being. Emotionally it definitely hurts especially during this time of the year.

A beautiful thing about the holidays is that I have friends who invite me to spend time with them because they understand that the holidays aren’t the best time of the year for me. Even with this being the case, everyday, a huge part of me hopes that I would get a phone call or a message from my family, where the person on the other end is apologetic, accepting of their faults, and displaying changed behaviors. Almost everyday I get sad because I miss our unique relationship that we all shared in my household. Hell, for the last 9 years I’ve been living in northern Virginia I partially wished my family would come and actually visit me but none of that has ever happened. So if I am distant or seemingly not myself during the holidays I simply ask that you have patience as I am working on accepting this somewhat new reality of mine.

What I have accepted so far is the reality of the situation I have put myself in as a reaction to the behaviors of the family I love. I accept that my heart is broken with them and only changed behaviors combined with time can possibly heal it. I accept that being alone for the holidays is perfectly fine regardless what society tries to press upon you but on the flip side, I accept that I have friends who care about me enough to share their space with me because they deem me worthy of receiving love in a manner that is healthy and unconditional. I accept that I don’t enjoy social media and even television during this season because I don’t want to see images of something I do not and will not have unless I create it for myself in the future. I accept that I don’t want to go to people’s family’s houses on Thanksgiving because it painfully reminds me of how my memories of enjoyable trips home to my family are just that. I accept that due to my strained relationship with my immediate family it is causing me to lack a relationship with my nieces and nephew who are growing up so fast it’s scary. I accept that my situation, though unique, isn’t so strange that I should feel guilty for not conforming to some image society places upon us. Lastly, I accept that home isn’t where I still wish it was. Home is where the heart is happy and intact. Home is where I am paying rent to live in my apartment. Home is not with my family in Richmond anymore… and I have accepted that.