This is my fifth holiday season since I separated myself from my biological family. It is also the first one where it has started to feel like my two siblings and I have started to build some kind of tradition around our celebrations. Things haven’t changed much, between the family holidays of years gone with our larger biological family and how we celebrate them these days: we gather at someone’s residence, bring food to share, cook a bunch of food for the event, and then eventually separate. There’s usually more stuff in there that we’re still kind of working out, though. We try to gather for longer periods of time, spending at least one night wherever we’re celebrating, so we can spend time with each other outside of the harried cooking, eating, and then cleaning of the larger holiday meal. We also try to find other little things we enjoy to include, like watching movies or TV shows (which is our primary form of social contact for most of the year: gathering on discord to watch a movie or some episodes of a TV show), or bring forward other traditions from our mutual past that we want to be able to still enjoy, like taking the time to build Lego sets on Thanksgiving morning or eating sugary cereals on Christmas morning. We’re still very much figuring out those kinds of particulars, but we’ve hit the point where we’ve at least settled into a couple options at most and are, as far as I can tell, just waiting to see what sticks.

I’m looking forward to future holidays being smoother sailing, though, to be honest. I separated from the larger family first amongst my siblings, in 2019, and was the lone absentee at the family holidays, which was pretty difficult all on its own since I got a lot of “we missed you” type messages that all had at least a little hint of guilt and absolutely zero questions about where I’d been or why I hadn’t attended. It’s not like I could have told them anything, though, since I was still trying to figure out what I wanted out of my biological family relationships and was struggling with feeling alone in general, for other reasons. This whole situation hadn’t improved by the next year, even if I had mostly figured out that I wanted nothing from my biological family, since we were all alone for the holidays in 2020 and I did my best to spend time with people over discord and zoom calls, eating our own separate holiday meals as we toasted each other through our cameras. The year after that was a bit better, since my local friends invited me to spend the holidays with them and half their family, but it was still difficult. Even these last three years, 2022-2024, have been difficult despite being better over all. It’s not easy being completely inundated with so much “happy family” or “reunited family” media, which the fall and winter holidays in the US are absolutely rife with. There’s very little space for people who have separated from their biological families and aren’t seeking any kind of reunification. All I’ve ever gotten is what I’ve made for myself and my siblings, which really isn’t much. Plus, I was exhausted, physically worn out, and emotionally drained for last year’s holidays, thanks to starting my meds in October 2023 and 2023 being a rough year in general, and this year’s holidays aren’t off to a much better start. I’m hoping next year’s will be a bit better, but it’s difficult to envision that kind of future from where I’m sitting in early December of 2024.

This might just be my exhaustion talking today, but I’m not really sure if I’ve accurately portrayed just how difficult a decision it has been to separate from my biological family and stay separated. I’ve probably talked about everything I’ve given up as a result (opportunities for inheriting whatever generational wealth my family has at this point, a built-in support network that would only ever barely meet my needs if they were severe enough, or any ties to my past and the places of my past) and the reasons I’ve done it (all the emotional neglect, allowed abuse, and lack of any kind of emotional support ever), but I don’t think I’ve talked about the toll much. It’s difficult to really describe, after all, since there’s more to it than just feeling isolated because every holiday-themed everything involves a family coming together in love or reconciliation or whatever, but that really doesn’t touch how awful it feels to be the person who is alone amidst all that. My sister has a partner and said partner’s family to spend holidays with. My other sibling still does a lot of holidays with the biological family for reasons that are their own to divulge. All my friends have partners, families (both parent-and-sibling families, non-traditional-family-units, and kids-of-their-own families), and traditions to fall back on, so it’s difficult to be the only one adrift because my non-traditional family unit is scattered. I’ll be seeing both parts of it this Christmas, just not on Christmas itself. Which is still really nice! Don’t get me wrong. It’ll be the first time something like that has happened since 2018 and I’m looking forward to it. It’s just difficult to not think about how often I lack any kind of plans on one of the major yearly holidays.

I don’t have any particular conclusion about this. It sucks. I count myself lucky to have two groups of people I count as my non-traditional family unit. The holidays can be incredibly isolating. I’m looking at maybe the most social and current-family-unit filled winter holiday season since I finally cut off my parents. All of these things are true and difficult to reconcile even if there’s nothing preventing them from coexisting. Emotions are difficult and the holidays always make them even more so. I’m hoping that a couple more weeks of mingled work and rest outside of work, especially as I can now return to sharing fulfilling creative work on this blog, can help me sort through the tangle of positive and negative emotions I’ve got stirring around inside me. At least I’ll have a therapy appointment a couple days before Christmas. That’ll help a lot. It’s always easier to unpack that stuff in therapy when the actual therapy session is close the holiday causing me emotional disquiet. I just hope that I’ll have enough energy to actually put it all aside and enjoy myself during the times I’ll get to see my two family units.