Ghosts of Christmas Past

While I've never been one to suffer from 'Holiday Depression', I've never discounted it. I've seen too many people brought to their knees by the holiday season. It's either the stress brought on by responsibilities of the season, or a depression over everything the holidays are supposed to represent. Some are despondent of the costs associated with the holidays, wanting to present themselves as prosperous or that a valuable gift will somehow express their unstated emotions or feelings, or worse yet, that it will make up for everything that is lacking in that particular gifter/giftee relationship. Others will run themselves ragged trying to create that nostalgic Christmas that they really never had and only truly existed in their dreams and expectations. Some will dread the thought of spending time with family and extended relations at this time of year, old arguments and resentments being rehashed over too much food and alcohol, or in some cases, not enough alcohol. Then there are those that will dread being perceived as alone and lonely at this time of year, that by not having a significant other to validate them during the holidays it will sum up their year as empty and without meaning or value.

As I sit here at the beginning of February there is still one gift as yet undelivered, and every day I that I see it is like a fresh cut on my psyche. We've all heard about cutters, assuaging their guilt-anger-depression-self hate-etc by cutting themselves in unseen places. Like the cut will either remind them that they're still alive or give validity to their emotions and feelings. I'm worse than that, I'm an internal cutter. I use memory triggers, every day items in order to cut across my well being. A book, a card, a photo, a memento, a still wrapped gift. I'm not one to wait until Christmas to shop for Christmas presents, that's too amateur for me. I shop all year long for the people I care for, when I see that perfect gift I don't want to mentally bookmark it and hope it will still be here in December when I come back to shop, I buy it right then and there. I have a bin for all those gifts, I wrap them in holiday paper with a post-it as to what it is & who it's for, adding the notation to my Christmas spread-sheet. A little anal, but at least no-one get's left out or forgotten. That's the story with the Panda's gift. I bought it around the same time I bought his Valentine's Day gifts, wrapped it up and stored it away. Who knew that by the time Christmas rolled around we would no longer be an 'Us', that I wouldn't have seen him in 4 months by that point. That just holding that gift in my hands would reduce me to tears. So I finished wrapping it, adding ribbon and a tag, hoping against hopelessness that we could just see each other for coffee, then before we parted . . . just slide the gift across the table and walk away. Very 'Anna Karenina', all I would need is some steam from a train engine to walk through and a Russian balalaika playing in the background.

Well, as readers you know that hasn't happened yet, and it's been almost 6 months since I've see the Panda face to face. And still that package sits and sits. Innocent to all that has happened yet the source of my pain and daily mocking. It sits on a chair by the door, like it's waiting to go out, for a ride, a walk, for delivery. Re-gifting is out of the question, giving it away is not an option, throwing it away would only make things worse. It's like a black hole, pulling in emotions- gravity- light- and the ability to do long division. In my mind I've built this one gaily wrapped box into a tsunami of emotion and suppressed feelings. It's become the ultimate Pandora's Box. What happens when it's opened,  and by whom.