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For most folks, this time of year is all about joy, promises of love and fellowship, and hope for the new year to come. For some folks, though, it's just a collection of reminders of things we've loved, things we've lost, and things we've never really had. That's me. Not everyone can walk around filled with hope and magic at this time of the year - some of us are literally walking in a haze of flashbacks and trauma.

When I walk around this time of the year - the music, the lights, and the overall vibe of it all just brings me back to times and places I'd really rather not revisit. Friends have felt hurt and even offended by my distinct lack of festive spirit, but it rolls over me - flashbacks of the holiday wars I've somehow survived. 

 Alone, tiny, crying as quietly as possible so I wouldn't get hit again while my mother tore through the house like a cyclone of rage and misplaced hate. Not allowed to open gifts, if we had a tree at all, we salvaged it from someone's garbage the day before and decorated mostly with household trash. We could afford nice things, but my mother used the money we had on her vices instead. 

A few years later, slipping out and walking for hours in the oh so silent night, seeing families through their windows, doing family things around their elaborate shimmering trees.I could smell the roasted meats, the savory herbs and spices used, the creamy mashed potatoes, the sweet desserts - pies, cakes, tarts, and cookies. Things I only had when I snuck away to a friend's house or if we somehow just happened to visit Grammy for the holiday.

My holiday keywords are alone, cold, hungry,and afraid. This was most of my childhood Christmas experience, year after year. The year I turned 16 I had yet another holiday tragedy. I was so deeply depressed that I had attempted to overdose on Xmas eve and while I was sick from all the pills and I was weak and starting to convulse from the nausea, I was assaulted by an ex boyfriend who was a lot older than me (23), a lot bigger, and I didn't stand a chance of fighting him off. I got pregnant that night. 

I didn't report it to the police because I was already a problem child - they had records of my running away from home multiple times, CPS exonerating my mother even though I tried to tell them what was happening, And I was overdosed on pills when it happened. Not even a year before I knew a girl who was violently gang assaulted in my city and though in the end the perpetrators did eventually recieve jail time - it wasn't before the girl was shredded by local opinion, the courts, the police, everyone questioned why she was walking outside after dark and not why three men attacked her and brutalized her to the point where she was hospitalized for several weeks to recover. My city was not a safe place for victims in 1991.

Almost immediately had started a relationship with an awful man who was also criminally older than me (24 to my still tender and now pregnant 16) I was scared and alone and broke and he'd promised to keep me and my baby safe, to protect us and help us get through this. I believed him, I don't know why.. I was pregnant again almost as soon as my first daughter was born, my fate was basically sealed.

We broke up not a full year after my second daughter was born and he fought me for custody. I was a teenager, only 18 at this point, and he was almost 27 with two jobs, a car, a family who supported him, and a bankroll to make sure things went his way. I won interim custody that summer but the week of Christmas he'd been back to court and regained custody because I was on income assistance and the court didn't like his description of my apartment - I literally kissed my babies goodbye in my dad's hall not a full hour after my landlord had dressed as Santa to visit them and bring them treats - two days before Christmas. 

I lost my beautiful father one day after boxing day - he didn't die that day, but he collapsed and we had to take him to the hospital. I got "the talk" that night - the "should we resuscitate?" talk, they had diagnosed my father with terminal cancer less than two weeks before, and this was it. The cancer had overwhelmed him. He lived another 4 months, but he remained in the hospital on palliative care until he passed.

I tried so hard to force myself to be cheerful for the holidays. For years I faked it and I made these huge feasts and invited everyone over so there'd be no quiet to contemplate. I was exhausted and I can honestly say I have cried more for Christmas than I really care to even admit.  It really doesn't work. It's like placing a bandaid over a bullet hole. 

This past year specifically, I have lost so much. My home was ripped from under me by a selfish monster of a woman who wanted to build AirBnB units in the hood, every time I started to feel like I could regain my footing something else was ripped from me and right now my heart honestly doesn't feel festive - once again I find myself feeling cold, alone, and afraid. 

When people are telling me to cheer up and get into the spirit it feels like they want me to hang streamers in a bloody war-zone and bake a cake. It feels like dancing on graves - my own and all the past versions of myself that I have buried, never having eulogized - just thrown into a shallow hole and brushed some dirt over, hoping that my crime of self abandonment will never be discovered. 

I'm telling you all of this, not for any kind of pity, but because sometimes just telling someone to cheer up and get in the spirit is thoughtless and, yes, maybe even heartless. If someone isn't adequately feeling it - consider why and try to be soft with them. If they don't want to tell you, that's fine too - it could be too raw for them to talk about but if you care about them, try to respect that they fight different battles than you and maybe your reason for seasonal cheer just brings them agony and sorrow.

Just be gentle and kind and try to understand that everyone has their reasons.