On Christmas Dreams

I want to talk about Christmas, gifts, and how and why efforts ring hollow for me.

So, if you read back a bit, you'll know that I have a rather extensive history of emotional neglect in my childhood. My parents, were more or less, unavailable for me and my needs. I make no attempts to justify that, or to qualify it with reasons or examples, it is an old issue that I don't need to explain.

One of the things I do want to share though, is how that manifests around this time of year, and what I take away from it these days. One of my earlier Christmas memories is of receiving a gift that was ...not great. I know I know, spoiled rich white kid gets gift, doesn't like it, is traumatized forever. Let me clarify.

The issue, wasn't that the gift wasn't what I wanted, the issue, was that it was something I already had. It wasn't the item that hurt, it was the lack of knowledge from my parents, or lack of effort, to know what who I was. And yes, that alone, is small potatoes out of context. However, it's just another aspect, and color of what my childhood was like growing. The lack of attention, the unavailability of my parents, and the overall lack of making an effort is entirely in character for them.

IT was another example of them not knowing who I was, and not caring enough to find out. Now, flash forward a few decades, and they wonder why I don't reciprocate their gestures. Why I find concepts like duty and familial obligations as such trivial notions of effort. I get cards from my parents containing money, and honeyed words that ring hollow when the same people routinely advocate positions against my interest.

Which, goes back to an ongoing issue with my father. We haven't spoken since the election, and I have no real interest in doing so. Our lives are so entirely separate that I don't see the point in repairing that bond. He has his life, I have my life, and outside a shared history and some DNA, there isn't much there for me. I don't have the emotional energy to educate him on how and why his views are damaging and hurtful.

If I did, what benefit is there for me? I still don't feel a great connection to him, It's not like we've had a long great history or relationship. He barely knew me then, he barely knows me now.

One of the other trends for gifts have been board games, or fantasy games. Google Heroes Quest if you want an example, and a hilarious video. I remember getting dozens of these fantasy games between my brother and I. and I remember being consistently sad and disappointed when I would want to play them, but no one be around, or up for doing such. They would get maybe one or two uses before being relegated to a closet. I'd then raid them for their miniatures/figurines to use for my own play and stories. I find this still happens though. Many times I remember myself buying things with the thought that it would be a fun group activity for my chosen family, only to have it fizzle out and sit on a shelf to be used a few times but rarely as a group of us.  I have this same fear for new gifts this year as well.

I find myself torn between the optimistic view of wanting that family bonding time over games and drinks, spending the money and emotional investment advocating for a time for the four/five of us to get together. And the pragmatic view of realizing that everyone has their own job and life and time and energy to spend on their own, and rarely is on the same thing the rest of us want to do. It feels on one hand selfish to ask them to spend this time doing something they may not enjoy, despite my marketing attempts towards them, and my not-so-subtle "hey we should do this" prompts, on the other, it's hard to deny myself that craving for family bond that was so oft denied growing up and that waxes hard this time of year.

And outside that, is my monologue, which says it's dumb to even ask for such, when if they wanted to, they would invest the time to do such. I don't know. We all want to feel like we belong, and maybe I'm wrapped up in trying to cover my chosen family in the bonding methods of my failed biological one.

A stray thought: In context, it seems of course reasonable that I would be the one to move away, I was the one who had the least keeping me there. It's not difficult to do when you have no strings holding you to a place that actively campaigns against your kind. Maybe my brother never managed to move away because he felt the connections to family more strongly than I.

Maybe, I'm just a cold hearted bitch who thinks she is owed something from the world for the shitty circumstances of her life.