It's the most wonderful time of the year, with the kids jingle-belling and everyone telling you "Be of good cheer".
Warning : this post may cause sadness not usually associated with this time of year.
So, this Christmas will be my first as a "child of divorce". This is not to say that I have up til now had the perfect family; while I have indeed had a very privileged upbringing, it has been fraught with emotional breakdowns, heartbreak and terrible atmospheres.
I almost feel like the last kid in the schoolyard to get braces, as nearly all of those close to me have endured their parents' separation (let alone 63% of America's children) and besides - like a slow-moving train - this destination has always been on the map. That doesn't make it any easier when it eventually arrives.
I am currently living four hours away from the family home, the small town where I was born, raised and misbehaved; so up until now, I have been somewhat detached from the separation process. However, in a few days I will be driving home for Christmas - suffice to say, the dulcet notes of Chris Rea will no longer be making an appearance on my home-made CD for the journey. I am overcome with sadness by the thoughts of such minor absences: pulling up to the driveway with only my mum there to open the door and welcome me with open arms; the "snug" which my dad adopted as his man cave being empty, lacking in a football match and glass of wine; the lack of the waft of dad's aftershave in the air when I walk down the stairs in the morning to meet him in the kitchen for breakfast; looking out of the window and not seeing his car. The list goes on.
I count my blessings that my dad's new flat is, by all accounts, not far away, but this does nothing to mask the fact that the family home is now just a house. Someone close to me said that Christmas after divorce feels like there has been a death in the family. I won't entertain this idea, as I am fully aware that there are millions of people all over the world enduring so much worse than me this festive season, but I can't ignore the fact that everything I have ever known is about to change forever.
I have always been amazed by the human mind's ability to miss something that gave you no joy. I quite often miss my relationship that was little more than horrendously mentally and physically abusive - why is that? Is it a sadness purely of what you have had to endure? Is it feeling sorry for yourself? Is it realising that you loved someone in a way that they could never love you?
As this is both of my parents' second divorce and, in their sixties, my close friend suggests that it must be a feeling of failure and grief at what their lives should be or could have been at this time in contrast to the life that is prevailing.
This is all by the by, for it doesn't matter the colour, length, density or consistency of the straw that broke the camel's back - the back remains broken. I am comforted by the acknowledgement that I am still lucky to have both of my parents, albeit apart and in different abodes.
When thinking of this time as the end of the world as I know it, a Georgia State University professor attempts a positive spin on the impending doom of the end of our universe:
With this in mind, at least I have some wonderful allies - other children of divorce - who can console me, empathise and prepare me for the impeding sadness this Christmas will undoubtedly bring. They will understand and not tell me to "be of good cheer" this year - but maybe, hopefully, next year.
“And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
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