Home for the Holidays

So the holidays are almost here and for the first time in my life I am excited for Christmas.  My mother and I are not Christian, although she does believe in God, and I just like the holiday.  Normally Christmas was the holiday of "appeasing the grandmother", however, and this is the first time I have ever been excited for it, predominantly because I am not visiting my grandmother, but instead staying home and relaxing all day.

My father, of course, is angry, and my grandmother won't talk to me or my mother, but I know this is the best choice for me.  My therapist agrees, because of the stress of the holidays and because of my grandmother's overbearing disappointment in me.  I have enough self-esteem issues, I don't need to hear about how she is disappointed in her little college-drop-out granddaughter.  She absolutely does not understand that I made the best choice for me, that I have an illness, that I need to get better and I won't by being who she wants.  My father does not understand this either.  These are just two of the people I've lost in this struggle, but if they can't support me now I suppose I have to accept they aren't really family or meant for me at all.

My mother and I are making sirloin steak tomorrow, with teriyaki rice, and loose corn.  Add a little A1 sauce, and it will be perfect.  It's one of my favorite meals, and that plus the fact I can stay in and watch movies, maybe catch up with Lost, means so, so, so much to me.  I really do get to have a "merry" Christmas for the first time in my life.

Tonight my ma and I are going to her brother's house for a party with her family.  I'm excited to give my cousins the bracelets I made, and I'm excited to try to be part of the family for once.  I've always been on the sidelines of my family, never quite fitting in, but through managing my mental illness I've realized I do have something to offer to my family.  It will be scary getting up and talking to people, being part of the whole for once, but I feel this is a step I need to take.