Make It Count in Days of My Destiny

So I bought presents for everyone in my family online. I don’t know what happened to our Secret Santa thing. It doesn’t normally work anyway because there’s always someone who bought more presents than they were supposed to. I actually forgot all about Secret Santa anyway, so I’d bought presents for everyone and only remembered that we (supposedly) do Secret Santa when someone else mentioned that they do that with their own large family. Normally mum puts the names in a hat and then tells us all who we’re buying presents for. But this year, nothing has happened. I haven’t heard anything. So I bought everything, it all arrived in the mail and we also went to Tamworth and bought things for L’s side of the family. We came home and wrapped some of the presents. L happily wrapped some for his little innocent family, and I wrapped some of mine for mine. The idea is that my presents will all go into one big box, and my in-laws will kindly take that box back up north with them after their visit here. I now just have to ask my brother to pick up the box. I don’t know what’s happening on New Year’s Day.

Our family doesn’t celebrate Christmas. We get together on New Year’s Day instead and have a family day and we give out presents then. Except that this year on New Year’s Day, L and I will be down here, my sister and her family will be away, and mum will be in Chile (her brother just got out of jail and it’ll be the first time in a long time that her siblings and mother are all in the one place at the same time). Mum has been in Chile on NYD before and we still got together all the same (minus my brother and his family who didn’t see the point at that time). I’m hoping that this year my brother has the decency to still organize a family day, even if half the family is gone. I also hope he’s okay with picking up the box of presents.

All these thoughts put me in a sad place. I hate that I have a box of presents here for the family, and nobody readily available to take the box. My dad, you can’t count on him. I wouldn’t drop it off at his address anyway because everyone else living there is BOUND to forget to hand the presents out to the recipients, and the presents will simply sit there for months on end, forgotten and uncared for. I can’t drop it off at my sister’s because she’ll be away. And the only other one left is my brother, who … well he’s just unpredictable. I don’t know if he’ll even bother.

I never focus on the failings of my family. I mostly accept that our family is what it is, warts and all. We are who we are, and we somehow make it work. Others might not see this, but I do. All it usually takes is looking through our photos to see that happiness IS there - just not in the usual straight-up-and-down way.

But you know what? Wrapping these gifts and thinking about how COMPLICATED it has to be to simply have them delivered just made me so, so, so sad. It made me see the warts more than the spaces in between. It made me go to that place. I was a little girl just WISHING her family could be a simple, happy, organized one. I wished so bad that someone, somewhere could place the importance on these things the way we should be. I wished mum wasn’t effing off overseas on the One Family Day that we are all supposed to put aside. I wished that she of all people wasn’t disappearing. You know why? Firstly, she is the matriarch. Mothers are supposed to be the glue of the family. They’re supposed to be COMMITTED to the family, committed to events and things, even when nobody else really is. Mothers are supposed to be that strong foothold, the one that holds down the fort. But also, mum shouldn’t be effing off because for all her claims that she loves her family and that family is so important to her.................................... she needs to SHOW that. Words .. are just words, at the end of the day. Love is shown in ACTION. And THAT is something that is completely missing in our family. It always has been.

I was crying so bad that afternoon, pouring my heart out to L, telling him how much I WISHED mum had never followed dad out here, how I WISHED they had ended it for good all those years ago, the FIRST time they broke up, when they were merely going out, still in their teen years. I didn’t care if it would mean that I’d never been born. I just wished so much that these two individuals could’ve led happier, more peaceful lives. Not this PRETENCE of a marriage, doing their own thing, disappearing in the most important times.

I saw all the failures and I needed to delve into them. I needed to cry and really mourn what ISN’T in our family.

I told L that THIS is why I’m not even huge on Christmas. Because it all seems too much!!! The happiness is just FAKE! Why put it on for this one day???

But you know, at the same time, in that moment, I respected his mother SO MUCH for what she does. Last year, she was suffering anxiety leading up to Christmas BECAUSE of the thought of Christmas. But would you have guessed it on Christmas Day? HELL NO. She dressed up, she showed up, she faced up to it and had a wonderful smile on her face and made us all feel SPECIAL. She was COMMITTED. She WAS the strong foothold. She showed her love in ACTION. Selfless, sacrificial, comforting, encouraging LOVE.

And you know, yes I am so blessed to still have this in my life in some way - but why can’t it be from my OWN mum? Why does it have to be from somebody else? Why do I have to have this second-hand security and affection and love? You know, this is how it has come to feel as time has gone on. In my first few years with L’s family, Christmas was wonderful and it felt AMAZING to have this in my life, something that I’d never realised I’d actually missed. But over the years I’ve almost come to despise it - because at the end of the day, it’s HIS family. Not mine. And all the goodness that is in his family only magnifies, to me, what is lacking in mine. At least it has this year.

And at the same time................................... I realised that I don’t want to be That Mum. I don’t want to be the one that feels the pain and gets all selfish at Christmas time (I never do, this was a first). I want to be the committed Mother that holds down the fort, that shows love in action and I want to be the one that mans up and shuts up and shows up. I want to be the one that is reliable. Whether it’s Christmas or Birthdays or Any Other Ordinary Day. I want to BE THERE. And I want to make it count.

Last updated December 18, 2014