Obligatory SNL link :

YouTube doesn’t have the full video, so audio will have to do.

Having a pleasantly lazy Sunday. Well, pleasant until it’s blog time and I find my marbles stubbornly resisting coming together. Apparently my brain is trying to take the day off too.

Well tough titties, brain (don’t make me hurt you, pinky), we got one thing to do today and that’s come up with the usual 1000 words. It may seem like a lot today, but if we just keep at it and try not to get distracted by shiny objects, we’ll make it.

I really feel like a child right now (but where would I get one on a Sunday?). A child on holiday, seeking only fun, mind loose and open but also impatient and prone to petulance. So maybe a wee bit spoiled.

It must be the proximity to Xmas that is doing it. My mind wants to retreat back to a time when Xmas was a wonderful time when the family was all around me and happy festive things were happening (getting the tree, trimming the tree, helping Mom make the rapure by cutting up the meat) all leading to Xmas morning, where we would all sit around the living room, doing one gift at a time, everyone watching and sharing in the joy of the person unwrapping.

Even my father was nice around Xmas time. He really did his best to keep his temper under control. Sometimes he slipped, but for the most part, he was good.

So despite a largely lonely childhood, Xmas was a really good time for me, and I have many treasured childhood memories of the Yuletide season. When you are a kid, Xmas is nothing but magic.

So different when you are an adult. There’s nobody there to make the magic for you. You have to do it yourself, and when you are all alone, it’s just not the same.

So while I keep Xmas in my heart, I don’t really do anything to celebrate it by myself. Not so far, anyhow. I am too scared that if I go there, the sentimentality will also bring sadness and loneliness with it, and I need to avoid that to stay safe.

Like I say ever year, Xmas is the most dangerous time of the year for me, mental health wise. The emotions it brings up can be very dangerous for a depressive like me. I might harm myself. So I have taken to enjoying the holiday season, but when Xmas Eve and Xmas morning come along, I more or less hibernate through it.

Otherwise, the sadness and loneliness will put me in the kind of danger that only people who have been suicidal know.

Of course, there are placed I could go. Places where they open their doors to all who are lonely and alone, places that would welcome me in, and I wouldn’t be so alone, and I would be around others, which is… safer.

The problem with that notion is the usual one : social anxiety. The very thought of going to some place I’ve never been that will be full of strangers who might have unrealistic social expectations of him and who will definitely find him to be cold fish, and a strange one at that… that might actually be worse than being alone.

I’d probably need to have a few stiff drinks in me just to walk through the door.

Maybe some day, when I am a little healthier, that would be an option. Find some open doors Xmas Eve event, bend the rule a little and have some Xmas cheer, and maybe even learn to relax about people and let them in.

It’s a good dream, one I can imagine happening. Using liquor as a social anesthetic is not strictly kosher by the rules of both my diabetes and my medications, but I can’t think of anything else that would work.

I have tried taking an extra dose of my Paxil. My therapist says that is totally legit and something I should always count as part of my coping resources.

But I find the emotional chill that produces to be very unpleasant. I would never rule it out completely, because there are undoubtedly situations where it would be worth it, but there is a reason lowering my Paxil dose has made me a happier person and that’s because I want to feel things.

I might be numb, but I know it and I am actively trying to escape it and let my emotions flow.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to go all glacier metaphor on you this time.

So no, I don’t think I will be seeking an open door this Xmas eve. And I doubt I will do anything special all by myself except open some presents Xmas morning.

Luckily, this year, instead of a virtual gift certificate, my sister Catherine sent me a whole whack of wrapped gifts, and so I will have a bunch of things to open that special morning.

I suppose I could get some Xmas cheer of my own. Might make the evening go a little more smoothly. I don’t know where the liquor store is around here, but it would not be hard to look up. Might be nice to have some mulled apple juice mixed with spiced rum.

But knowing me, I will likely never get around to actually going out there to buy the ingredients. So I will not invest a lot of hope in that outcome. It’s a possibility, but not a necessity.

I guess today’s blog entry turned into my annual Fru’s Sad Xmas blog entry. I feel a little better for having gotten some of my thoughts and worries out. Whatever happens, I will muddle through somehow.

And of course, I have Xmas dinner with Joe’s family to look forward to as well. That really does me a lot of good, knowing that the whole thing won’t pass me by entirely.

Don’t worry too much, folks. I’ll make it through.

And I will talk to all of you nice people again tomorrow.