The holidays are here. Some are already happening and some are swiftly approaching and yet I have no idea what I’m going to do this year. Since I went no-contact with my entire family except my younger siblings, I’ve celebrated with two of them, observed it via discord calls during the start of the pandemic, joined my local friends’ family at their house, and then spent it with those same friends who had to cancel their travel plans due to the nasty weather. I thought I might travel to visit some friends (the ones on the east coast that I’ve drived to visit twice this year) but the thought of going anywhere far away fills me with preemptive exhaustion so severe I had to take a fifteen minute break from what I was doing when I idly considered doing another pair of one thousand mile drives. Sure, I’ve got my longest break from work in years thanks to some extra holidays my employer gave all the US employees and a few days of PTO I have to spend before January nineth (a whole twelve consecutive days), but I REALLY need to take some time to myself. I’m incredibly burned out and I could really use some actual rest. Sure, I’d love to see my friends and I’m sure I’d have a great time visiting them, but it would probably not be terribly restful, regardless of whether I drove or flew. Not to mention it’s a bit late in the year to be making plans like that.

I’m also not sure I’ll actually get much rest over the winter holidays, no matter what I do. I tend to avoid thinking about things that upset me by finding projects to busy myself with and, since I haven’t really done the work to reclaim the winter holidays (I did try avoiding them entirely for a bit, by investing in Candlenights instead of any “official” holiday, but the pandemic kinda ruined that for me), I’m still not sure I can get through the holidays without falling into a morose fugue. Which would, of course, result in me finding some kind of project to work on or video game (obviously Baldur’s Gate 3) to lose myself in so I don’t have to think about the year I’ve had or my terrible family situation. I mean, sure, I’ve gone no contact and I know it’s the right choice for my mental and physical health, but that doesn’t make it fun. It just makes it less miserable. I mean, I’m literally writing a paragraph about not letting myself rest in order to avoid thinking about painful stuff with the intention of turning it towards the idea that maybe what I really need is some time to actually be uncomfortable instead of avoidant and I’m already considering what games I could stream to fill up my time in a way that would connect me with other holiday avoiders. Even when I’m deliberately trying to direct myself, my brain is an expert at jumping off the tracks and finding some way to avoid the things that are unpleasant to consider. Better to let them stew endlessly in the back of your mind than to confront them and have to work through the pain, after all…

All of which is probably evidence that I need to avoid filling my time. I need to allow myself to feel bored. I haven’t really done that in several years now, since I chose escapism and avoidance as my pandemic survival strategies, and I’m overdue for some contemplative time. And maybe some “sleeping whenever I feel like it” time. That might be nice, though I suspect it will mess up my sleep schedule since I’m sure I’ll probably doze off quite a bit over the first few days and then be too rested to sleep much for a few days after that. At which point I will, of course, be so tired that I’ll be taking accidental naps again. Or maybe I’ll finally get free of my sleep debt and be able to build a more healthy relationship with sleep from that neutral ground. Hell, maybe I’ll finally work through my feelings of dissatisfaction with my life and figure out what I should try to address those feelings. Maybe I’ll buy a lotto ticket and win a billion dollars. Anything is possible when I’m just saying things that could potentially happen.

It can be difficult to be alone on the holidays, even when the idea of doing anything to mark them causes your insides to twist into knots and your shoulders to clench so hard your back muscles start to cramp. Isolation is better than revisiting places and people tied to the trauma of my childhood and early adult life, but it’s still not fun and nothing feels as isolating as being on your own during a major holiday. Hell, even the minor holidays make sollitude feel more acute than usual. It’s difficult to find a way to enjoy them, when you’re in a position like mine, since even the thought of going to a Christmas party can be a source of stress even if none of the people or places involved have anything to do with your trauma (which is actually what a trigger is, according to the once-useful definition of a word that has been watered down by people using it to reference anything that might upset someone or when something thinks something might bother a person when they think it shouldn’t).

Therapy helps, and eventually I’ll get to the point where reclaiming the winter holidays will be at the top of my to-do list, but for now I’m just going to take some time to sit with myself, maybe visit some people for a tiny bit, and try to give myself the time and space to simply exist that I don’t seem to ever allow myself any more. I’m not even going to do a puzzle or build a lego set. Well, I might do those things during some of that time, but I’m not going to pretend that those count as sitting with myself since I know I’ll spend all my time just focused on the puzzle or lego set rather than sitting with my thoughts. It will probably be difficult but very healthy for me. Which, you know, is how spending the holidays away from my biological family always is no matter what, so at least maybe I’ll ge a little more out of this than I would normally. Anything’s possible.