Christmas is Cancelled

It's just not happening. I can't do it. I'm cancelling Christmas. I mean, I'm still going to celebrate Jesus' birth, but in a much different way. I have to step out of the family tradition this year. I LOVE my family, but I'm afraid it'll be too heartbreaking to even see them, or have them see me cry. Christmas Eve was always spent with the entire family, usually at night with a ton of seafood and drinks. I don't ever remember having a bad Christmas. I've never even missed a Christmas before...until this year. I want to go, but I can't. I was going to make pans of food and gather with my sisters and their extended families, but I just can't do it. I just want grab a bite to eat with my partner, have a martini and go home. Maybe I'll cry, maybe I won't, but I know I'll miss my mom terribly. I can't even wrap my head around the fact that she's not going to be here this Christmas. Yes, I know, people die -- get over it, right?

The burdens of my grieving has caused even my own partner to roll her eyes at me. It's not like I'm grieving every single day -- I have good days more than I have bad days, but this is my very first Christmas without mom. Give me some slack here. And anytime I'm sad or just having a tearful moment, I'm told to "cheer up" and that I'm depressing my dog. These comments are all from those who still have their parents of course. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitter that people still have parents -- I'm not one of those jerks, but it kind of makes me wanna say, "Call me when your mother passes away and let me try and cheer you up before Christmas."

Right?

Right.

Am I angry? Maybe just a tad. Am I anxious? A lot. I'm anxious that I'm going to have a meltdown on Christmas -- a total 'lose my mind' moment where the guys in the white coats will finally take me away. My life has been destroyed. And then I'll get, "Oh, but you haven't seen all that I've gone through..." Sure, thank you for minimizing my grief for something entirely different, and yes, I'm sorry for all of the trouble you've seen. ::insert eye roll:: I sound so insensitive, and I probably am right now. I need ONE person to understand me, but I don't have not even ONE person who can sit down with me and say, "Deb, I totally get it..."

Don't worry, I'm not going to kill myself or write some sort of suicide note and leave the country and hide out at some resort and find a new name. (That kind of sounds good.) I want to live my life! I want to move on. I want to forget the last kiss I gave my mom on her forehead telling her that it was OKAY to let go and that I would be okay. I want to forget holding her hand as her entire body was slumped over her deathbed. I need new memories. She wasn't supposed to die that day. She went in for a fucking UTI. It's never the cancer that kills you. It's always the infection or side effects of whatever. Cancer sucks.

It's after midnight right now as I'm writing this. It's so silent, that I can hear the clock my mother bought me ticking loudly. I turn to the left and see all of the pots and pans that she bought me. I look to the right and I see all of the beautiful red dish towels she got me not too long ago because she overheard me saying that I needed them. Everything I have is her. The seat in front of me is the seat she used to sit in drinking her vodka and club soda with one lime and three olives. We would eat dinner on this counter and talk about her childhood, and of course gossip a little. I miss our chats. I miss telling her everything and getting her raw and ridiculous opinions about whatever drama I was going through. She understood me. She loved her crazy daughter.

And I loved her. I still do.

My heart hurts. I have to end this. But for now, Christmas is cancelled for me.

I hope everyone has a beautiful and Merry Christmas. I mean that.

For more of Deb's articles, please visit: www.debrapasquella.com or join her on Facebook and Twitter. Check out her cooking blog for some of her famous recipes! Feel free to watch Deb's live broadcasts over on Periscope as well!