Man, Holidays are Joyous Around Here
If you want a happy Easter greeting, here it is:
Happy Easter!
Now, if you’re in a foul mood and want miserable company, stay with me. I’m spending another holiday alone.
I’m alone today because of several factors. Some of these factors I didn’t really get until Saturday night when I was being a crybaby to my boyfriend. The gist of my huffiness being that I tend to feel rejected and unwanted at the holidays and he wasn’t helping for Easter.
He wasn’t doing anything wrong, but I definitely have needs he wasn’t tending to. Uh, mainly because he didn’t know about them. Whatever. We talked. He does now. He’s good with the talking and listening.
Part of why he doesn’t know is that I don’t specify what I need until it’s far too late, when I’m already upset and withdrawn. Fetal position, quiet, staring away in the bed. He doesn’t know what’s wrong or what to do with me. He’s trying to learn how to deal with this woman he cares about.
I was getting upset at the boyfriend about a particular issue and long after I’ve gotten upset at him, talked, and calmed down, I realized that a lot of WHY this holiday and the others this year is such an issue with me is that my family can be pretty crappy at holidays.
Which now, paired with my children usually being gone to other family and a divorce, means I’m alone. Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthday, Easter, junk like that.
I’m alone because my father has NEVER invited my sister and me to a family function unless he felt he had to or we were useful. We were in my stepsister’s wedding as bridesmaids because as she put it, “she doesn’t talk to her friends anymore.”
Meaning we wouldn’t have been even invited otherwise, and are only bridesmaids because she needed some. That was the last family gathering my sister and I went to, and it was several years ago. I’ve never even seen her toddler son. Before that wedding, I couldn’t tell you the last thing we went to with him. We weren’t even told when our grandfather died. We are standing orders of not invited, not wanted. Only invite with guilt or need.
I am now quite touchy about WHY someone invites me somewhere, I only want to go if I am wanted there by someone.
My mother spent several years leaving on the holidays. And still does. We just don’t know when, is the problem. There was one Christmas my sister and I actually showed up to her house on Christmas morning to find out she was gone. To Mexico with her boyfriend. She often leaves to spend holidays away from us, I know she loves us and is there 99% of the time, but it’s still hard to take.
At other times, she does holidays on alternate days…which can be quite helpful but also leaves the actual holiday with nothing. I’ve found it difficult to be alone on a day when you know so many others are getting together with someone who wants to spend that time with them.
So, no dad, no mom, my family isn’t big enough to just go to an auntie or cousins’ house. No kids, because either their dad or Mike will take them. And it’s just me. I feel that harsh, sinking feeling of being unwanted, of not being invited, of no one taking the time to ask. And it hurts to ask to be included, because I think that I’m being invited belatedly out of guilt or obligation.
I want to be wanted, invited. And I want to be invited because someone WANTS me there.
Posted by Melissa on March 23rd, 2008 under Boyfriendlies, It's back! Mater Dolorosa, Melancholia, Spawn
March 23rd, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Dude. If you didn’t live clear the fuck across the country you would have a standing invitation to my house, holidays or not.
Actually? Hell with it. You have it now, no matter where you live. If you ever get to Portland? You are welcome and wanted here.
So nah.
Hope you feel better tomorrow. Holidays suck. Families are hard.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:36 am
I’m so sorry. This surely is tough for you. I have family to visit on the holidays, but I get shut down as far as food. They don’t ever let me cook or bring anything and it makes me feel rejected. For me the holidays (each and every one!) are all about the food and if I cannot express myself in that way I feel stifled.
Is there any way where you can maybe have at least 1-2 holidays with the kids a year? You don’t deserve to be this sad.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Hey Sister! We were in bed all day too, because Ashley was at her dad’s. I tried to call everyone that morning to say “Happy Easter” and maybe a brunch. No one answered. Honestly, I was feeling bad at first, but it was kind of nice sitting in my PJ’s watching TV in bed all day. Next holiday Sis, we need to meet up in our PJ’s and sit in bed watching TV together. We can eat our chocolate and drink there too. Shit, you might as well spend the night girl. We’ll have our own party. Beer and chocolate. Sounds like a good time to me, what do you think?
March 24th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
That sucks - I spent Easter alone…. sort of. Although I did go to dinner at Outback with my folks, my boyfriend went to his hometown for the weekend and I wasn’t invited. I’m kind of worried he’s wanting to ditch me, but afraid to bring it up…. Oh well, Happy non-Easter Monday!
March 24th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Want to come for Passover?? You can sit between Hank, his sister and me. ;-)
Seriously, though, I bet you have a lot of people that would want you, but they don’t know that you want them.
March 25th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Had I known you and (another friend) were both alone for Easter I would have thrown an Easter brunch or something! I seem to always find these things out after the fact.
Ok. I need to start organizing ahead of time, yes?
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:57 am
Hmm. Hmm.
While I know the loser father has rights, and while I do find it quite beautiful that the stepfather of these boys loves them enough to want to still spend time with them even after your marriage has ended, this doesn’t really seem fair. Christmas AND Easter? Thanksgiving AND birthday (kids’ birthdays or your birthday)? How is that fair, and how does that teach them to value you?
Do the men ever take the kids on ordinary weekdays? Can they have weird alternative holidays sometimes, too, like Christmas Eve and National Shopping Day (day after Thanksgiving)? You know, just half the time or even a third of the time each?
I don’t know. I know it’s all for the kids and making sure the kids have the best possible experience, but this is not the first time in the last few months I’ve heard you being sad about this. It does sound to me like you’re getting a bit screwed.
I think Stephanie said the same thing more kindly and concisely.
April 4th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
The men do take the kids ordinarily as well. And yes, they would agree to me having the kids on holidays…but yes, I do want the kids to have a good experience, a solid family-oriented experience. And I am not in a place to do that for them, for the three of us only, just yet.