I went home to Folsom this year for Christmas. I didn't go home the year before. Christmas had been canceled twice by Mom, who was upset with me, then rescheduled at the last minute and I said no. I spent it with my ex, and it was nice. I was sad as I usually am at Christmas time, because spending time with family reminds me of how much they are hurting, stuck in this thinking that they are sinking as they always think they have been. And I'm not strong enough not to take on the heavy emotions of others, even from 400 miles away, so I sat in front of our tree and ate and ate and ate. I had a second new dog then, and even still, I sat quietly, angrily, sadly and passed in and out of conciousness while my boyfriend watched Guys and Dolls.
This year was different because I went home. The buildup was big. Mom called everyday it seemed, excited, overly excited and I anticipated a big crash a few days before. And there was one. She called the day before to explain that it would not be a good Christmas because she wasn't able to get an epidural to relieve the pain in her back, neck and shoulders. But something different happened this time inside my body.
I didn't care.
I don't know if it was because I brought the dogs with me (two puppies is equal to one mental parent, if you ask me) or because of a crazy ah-ha moment I had when I got there (see part 2 to this story later) but I went home and just chilled out. You may have seen the videos I posted on my facebook of mom's hoarding (the baby clothes, dolls, and christmas ornaments), Dad's over-safety (tarping the bedroom floor I was staying in), or the virtual strangers mom met at the mall selling make-up at a kiosk whom she brought to the house.
It was the most insane Christmas we ever had, but it was a real chill-out experience. I didn't overeat or overdrink (i did take an ambien every night and a clonopin just before present-opening) even when Mom started crying or during the moments of entertaining Israeli exchange students who barely spoke the language or trying to make onversation with my brother who shares few common interests with me. Even at Christmas dinner (at Mimi's Restaurant, no less), it didn't bother me at all that I was eating a Patty Melt sandwich while my nephew considered vomiting his hot chocolate.
I even stayed an extra day. My dad gave me 5 hugs during the visit. That's 1.5 hugs a day, though 4 of them were within the first 3 hours.
I'm glad I skipped a year. I remember that thing Dr. Phil says, "You teach people how to treat you." And though Dr. Phil is a scary, scary man-beast, he's right. Skipping a year was hard. There were nasty emails sent to me, creepy voicemails about how I was destroying the family, but my response was always polite, positive and minimalist even when all I wanted to do was scream and cry and list all the reasons in which I was right and that I had been abused. I took the hard way, seeing a long term solution. I was like how Obama responds to racists. If my response were a color it would have been taupe, and in return this year the response to me and the interactions were mostly sky blue, though I was on a lot of drugs, so I don't really remember for sure.
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