Holidays

OK, another holiday is upon us (Memorial Day) so I thought I would post about my feelings on holidays. Most people look forward to holidays, make plans to celebrate them, enjoy the days off of work, etc., right?

What I have found out over the course of my 32 years on this planet: I am not most people.

There are a lot of 'common' molds that I fit into nicely, but the whole holiday thing is NOT one of them. I find that I do not enjoy holidays very much anymore. They bring some element of sadness and anxiety to me, rendering them not very enjoyable....and some of them downright painful.

I don't even think it's all a conscious thing either. About a week or so before a holiday, I usually find that I am pretty down and kind of depressed. I look at my situation, surroundings, etc. and try to figure out why I am feeling that way, and more often than not, a holiday is approaching. I don't even realize it until I look at the calendar - how crazy!

Why is it that I freak out a holidays?? I'm sure that it has a lot to do with the fact that my family has largely disintegrated into thin air over the last 10 years or so. My parents moved away from my childhood home, Kristi moved to Arizona, my Dad died, Grandma died, I divorced, and now Mom is remarried.

Those things are family details, and holidays don't necessarily have to be about family, but that is generally the direction they go - you spend holidays with family. Well, that's not really the case for me anymore.....and I don't have a family of my own. Maybe one day I will have a husband and possibly kids, and maybe I won't. I just know that I get sad around holidays when people focus on family activities and I am like the kid who didn't get picked for dodge ball.

I think I need to make up some weird new traditions for myself that I do on specific holidays so that I can look forward to them and not dread them. It's important for me to associate good memories with holidays instead of feeling left out or sad. Maybe it's that I go to a certain place on a certain holiday or maybe I make my favorite foods on a certain holiday. Whatever.

I don't want to be sad when holidays come around - that's no fun and it's no way to live. If I live until my 'average life span' age, there are a LOT of holidays between now and then and that's a LOT of sadness that doesn't need to be there.

Any ideas or thoughts on this topic??