Christmas in Mexico

It’s my first Christmas not in Canada.

First Christmas away from my parents, my sister.

First Christmas where it’s not cold.

There’s definitely been a sense of listlessness these past couple of days. The fact that it was Christmas didn’t hit me until yesterday on Christmas Eve. Watching the world start to slowly shut down earlier than normal alerted me to the fact that something was different. I went for a long walk and found myself searching for a song that would scratch the itch of the feeling I was trying to feel. And no, it definitely wasn’t Christmas music lol. Nothing was settling me. Until I put on 90’s era Hong Kong ballads. It was like a balm on my nerves.

Maybe I just needed to listen to something in Chinese. Maybe the feeling I was looking for was nostalgia. A time when Christmas felt the best. When the excitement felt untinged with expectation, and obligation.

I chose to be away this year. Because last year was incredibly hard. And the year before that, and the last five years before that. All the pretending that everything was fine. All the things I reached for outside of myself to make it okay. When I think back to the hangovers, the exhaustion, the days of depression and resentment around Christmas and New Years, I know I made the right decision to just take some time and space away from it all. Noah feels the same. There’s only so much our nervous systems can handle. So much love can exist and yet so much pain, too, within families. And even though all is forgiven, sometimes more time is needed, more space is needed, before I’m ready to put myself near someone again for an extended period of time. Especially at a time of year that is especially triggering.

When asked what it’s like here, I always say it’s like a dream. Because it is. There’s a softness here that envelops. My gaze is softer. My movements. My thoughts. It makes me wonder just how much expectation can harden our hearts sometimes.

I have no doubt that my parents love me. Love isn’t the issue, it never was. Perhaps it’s this. To feel so far away from someone sitting right across the table from you, because your thoughts exist in an alternate plain altogether. To listen to the same sentence but hear something completely different. To look at the same event but see completely different interpretations. To have lived through the same timeline but to have experienced completely different emotions, to have totally opposite reactions. To feel tired of knowing that there’s love, without feeling it.

And to sit through it, year after year, trying not to feel anger, or disdain, or disappointment.

I don’t want to feel resignation. What I want to feel, truly feel, is acceptance.

And the distance helps.

Having more time to write helps. Learning how to be kinder, and softer, and more generous with myself helps. I can in turn offer it to others. This, and many other lessons, seems to be what was drawing me to this place.

I almost started writing this with, “My first Christmas away from home.” But it didn’t sound true.

There’s a home inside all of us that never goes away. It’s the place we go back to that feels safe. It’s the place we go to when we’re relaxed. When we’re quiet. When we’re still.

So that no matter where I go, no matter where I am, I’m home.