The Holidays

If there's any period of time when I feel more out of sync with the rest of the world, it's during the holidays.  My introversion definitely becomes more difficult to manage for these precious few days at the end of the year.
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I feel myself retreat more than usual.  It's supposed to be a time of happy families, togetherness, and warm memories.
For me, however, Thanksgiving isn't really a holiday.  The Mister always works the day after, so we never get to go anywhere.  Yes, I get the time off, but it's just another day to me most years.  I don't like turkey due to the fact that I got sick from it one year when I was a kid.
Last Thanksgiving was difficult emotionally, so now I don't like the day even more.

Christmas is the hardest, though.  Even thinking about it puts me in a state of exhaustion.  Because Christmas has always meant going home, being surrounded by noisy, loud family.
I'm not denying that sometimes I enjoy myself, but for most of the time I'm home, I want to escape.  I literally have to force myself to stay--for the Mom.  She loves, adores and cherishes Christmas.  It's her favorite season.  She loves having all of her kids home (even though the other two live in the same town and stop by to see her frequently) together.  Since she's who she is, there's almost always other family & friends who spend Christmas with the family--Mom firmly believes in the concept of "the more, the merrier."

This year my sister has a new baby.  A colicky baby.  And I'm sure I'll be expected to hold the baby and be looked at by the rest of the family as though, this time, seeing THIS baby, more than any other baby I've ever seen, I will suddenly realize how empty my life is without one of my own.  Dad will most assuredly do this, since he hasn't seemed to hear what the Mister & I have said over the years.
The sister, of course, will try talking at me.  At me because I try to escape from her company as quickly and efficiently as possible.  It's an involuntary reaction.  It's a severe feeling of immediacy.  A reflex like nothing I've experienced before or in any other situation.  Mostly due to the fact that I fear what I will say to her, and thereby ruin the happy cheer of everyone else.
Then there's the brother--the one who I cringe to be in the same room with because I'm always on guard that he'll lash out at me with his bitter anger/distrust/disgust/unhappiness.
Between those two, I'm automatically like a turtle/armadillo/hedgehog--I just want to withdraw in to my own quiet world and feel the serenity of solitude.
Since my Mom has such a big heart, and is loved by so many, there's family & friends who come to visit while I'm home.  And no matter how hard it is, I force myself to try to be friendly.  I force myself not to leave the room, or the house, or the country.  Because it hurts Mom's feelings when I do.  And I hate to do that.  I hate being the person in the family she thinks will "love" everyone she knows, and I'm the least likely one to do so.

While everyone else is forming happy memories of togetherness, I've come to remember past Christmas times as tense, uncomfortable periods.  The physical reaction I'm currently feeling, just remembering, is fight-or-flight.  I just want to escape, because I don't want to fight.  I don't want to ruin the memories for other people, especially my Mom.  This is the time in my life, more than any other, that I truly wish I was someone else--someone who handled being surrounded by people better, with ease.

I wonder if I should ask Santa for a lobotomy for Christmas...