Merry Christmas, everyone!
I’m sitting in my local Dunkin’ Donuts, having a cup of decaf coffee and working on a term paper. I spent a sublime morning tidying up my beautiful home after a wonderful workout, and capped it off with a warm shower and a comforting bowl of lentil soup with spinach and a couple of diet grilled cheese sandwiches (I’m doing Weight Watchers). I was supposed to meet a friend, but that didn’t work out, so I’m going to study for the rest of the day and then head to bed early to be at work in the morning.
Most likely, many of you are with your families on this seasonable December morning. That’s a lovely thing. It’s wonderful to have family, and it’s great to see them during the holidays. But some of us are probably thinking about what it would be like to have families of our own. For those of us who are heading out of our terrible twenties and into the primes of our lives, our thoughts turn every now and again to the subject of wanting a husband and, maybe - just maybe - a couple of little dumplings (as I call them).
It’s hard to deal with being single at these times. The wistful thoughts about what could have been can be torturous. The loneliness which hits every once in a while during the year can hit like a tidal wave during the holidays. Christmas is the very definition of hearthside familial warmth, and it can make one heartsick to imagine that one might be deprived of experiencing that warmth.
Even if you’re too young or indifferent to be thinking about wanting your own family, some of us - including myself - may simply never have had much of a family to begin with. For those of us who never really experienced familial warmth, Christmas can loom like the cavernous maw of an mountainside cliff, threatening to consume us with its emptiness and the pain which that engenders.
I’m well-acquainted with both the emptiness and, in recent years, the disappointment. My decade and a half as a single woman has forced me to walk with the pain and, happily, has uniquely equipped me to wring the joy and satisfaction out of such difficult times. My strategy for mining joy from suffering has been to take every bit of satisfaction out of every pleasure I can give myself in this tough situation and to honor the courage and strength it takes for me to survive it. On every family holiday, I do whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it, however I want to do it. I wake up to my own rhythms. I eat what I please. I putter around in my house, make art, call friends, eat ice cream. I go for long walks in the park and smell the cold December air. And I enjoy myself thoroughly.
The most important thing that I do is honor myself. Every minute of Christmas Day every year is a meditation on my own capacity for bringing myself joy and happiness. If you are longing for a family to spend your holidays with, I encourage you to start your own traditions. Put up a Christmas tree. Cook a really nice Christmas dinner for yourself and top it off with eggnog and a slice of cheesecake or pie. Watch a Christmas movie. Go Christmas shopping online every Christmas morning with credit card in hand. The important thing is that you feel special because you’re giving yourself special luxuries, ones that makes YOU feel treasured.
For those of you who are lonely this Christmas, get up right now and do something that gives you pleasure. Not something that SHOULD give you pleasure, something good for you like reading (unless you actually enjoy it...). Do something that makes you feel really GOOD. Then do something else. Keep it up until the blues start to lift. Then make your bed with lots of really heavy blankets, open the window, and go to bed early. That is, if you’re not busy watching Something Borrowed, eating caramel popcorn, and laughing hysterically. You go, girl.
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