Christmas

Christmas...really?

Everyone is worried about what presents they are going to buy their nanny or their hairdresser. I'm worried about which parent I will spend Christmas night with.

For someone who always thought she had the perfect family with the perfect holidays and the perfect life, I have realized that I never treated them as perfect when they were here.

Growing up, even up to last Christmas, I have always acted like a spoiled brat who "deserved" the best, and if I didn't get it...look out. Now that I don't have it, I'm devastated.

I guess the saying is correct. You don't know what you've got till it's gone.

It makes me sick to think about all of the times I acted spoiled or selfish during holidays, whether they were Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, or Easter. I never even knew I was acting that way at the time. I just did it.

Looking back, I wish I could change those memories of me being mad, or upset, or tired so that I could have perfect memories of when my family was perfect. While I still have those memories, unfortunately, I'm the only one in the stories that isn't perfect.

For some reason, I'm always the drama queen. I need all of the attention, good or bad, on me at all times.

My friends say that's still the same. They say I'm over-reacting about this whole thing with my family and I just need to get over it. They say it happens every day, and that my story isn't any different from anyone else's.

Well, it is. And it's okay for me to feel badly, and be sick, and cry. It's okay because that's what I feel. I'm sad. I make myself sick. And I cry.

I regret the holidays from the past. The Christmases where I didn't get exactly what I wanted and I was mad. There's even a picture of me from the third grade where I'm screaming my head off because my mom wanted me to pose with my new baby carriage and outfit I got from Santa. But, it wasn't exactly what I wanted, so I bitched, and complained, and screamed.

I did all of that while my cousin, who just lost her father in a horrible car accident just a week before, stood beside me smiling.

What I horrible person. From the beginning.

I vow to change.

I vow to be different. For my family, for my friends, for my future.

I don't want my kids to remember bad holidays because I can't be pleased.

More than anything, I want to forgive myself. Forgive because it's what I need to do to make the pattern change.

Until that pattern changes, I will cry.