Is it just me… or does this oncoming time of year often truly suck? It’s a time that is wrapped in expense, expectation, poor mental health and nostalgia all at once. A time that often forces us to spend days with family (which can be either wonderful or woeful) with a weighing pressure that the experience should be entirely wholesome, jolly and peaceful. I love the season we have just had. The cooling off of the summer into chilly October, the bronze and golden autumn leaves and sunshine, mulled wine, fireworks (wonderful to go to a public display again!), pumpkin carving, hot chocolates, getting dressed up for Halloween, the list goes on.
That time of year has always felt like my Christmas, only better. You can spend time with who you want to, celebrate as little or as much as you like – go all out with decorations, music, movies and cheer, or simply relax at home. Christmas has always inverted all of this, a bizarre combination of overindulgence and religious solemnity, no freedom to simply be who you are and express yourself. However, after the last two years of utter pandemic bedlam, I’m ready to challenge Christmas and say, for once, I’d like to be happy. Are they ideal circumstances this year? Of course not. I’m single, working in a job that is fine but not my career, and coronavirus still swirls around us. However, we have some freedoms back, I’m feeling pretty good about where I am regardless of the setbacks – I have wonderful friends, a few potential males in my life, several tattoos booked that I’m more than excited to get, I’m working in a job I enjoy, I have a lovely bedroom and roof over my head, I’m working out regularly and continuing to journey forward and try and find a place to start my writing career. It could be worse. I’m independent, and that’s not a small thing.
So this year, my wish is for Christmas not to be steeped in sorrow. Of course, there are parts of this I cannot control – my mothers mental health at the top of that list, the sad likelihood a beloved personality or two always seems to pass away near Christmas day, the possibility they may try and throw another lockdown over us (something I think at this point would be utterly pointless and people will fully reject) and the frankly apocalyptic headlines that now seem never ending on the news. Things I can control: how I look after my mental health, not being reckless with finances, getting fun things booked in the diary, working out my body, and making the best of each day. The endless barrage of global warming terror, political corruption, human suffering, pandemic statistics and terrorism is enough to make anyone despair, but somehow, someway, we find the ability to continue being hopeful (mostly) and attempting to build our lives into something to be proud of. So, I shall go and get my Christmasy nails done, make sure my Christmas jumper is packed, play Christmas Jazz and cook the Christmas beef with my brother, all in the hope that maybe, this year, it might just be a merry one.
By The Sea. 