Hum Bug, Hum Bug I tell you!

I’m going to be honest here, and when I mean honest I’m mean brutal. Over a month ago, I tried to ask my parents not to come up for the holidays. I was afraid that in my current bummer state and with things not so peachy keen… there might be fights, arguments and ugly moments I didn’t want them to be a part of or witness. Everyone tried their best to say otherwise, but guess what we did for the majority of the last several days? Yeah, who couldn’t see that coming? Lack of sleep and too many people giving orders made for chaos and sometimes people were ready to deck each other rather than the halls.

It’s over now, and thank goodness for that. Any longer and I might have had to do a Japanese suicide ritual with a butter knife. To make things worse, I’m an atheist so the holdiays mean little if anything to me but I went with it anyway. Everyone was trying to have a good time and do their own thing, who was I to correct them or try to put a damper on their special days?

I tried my best to stay out of their way rather than be a wet blanket, but turns out doing that was just as offensive to everyone. Sometimes I think banging my head against a brick wall would be more fun than trying to talk to these people sometimes and I had that feeling more than once per day. I love my parents very much, but sometimes 2000km is the best thing we could have done for our relationship.

One person that really upset me this week was my little brother. I try my best not to let anything he does get to me but this week the fuse was very, very short. Well shorter than usual, so as a result I couldn’t help it. Last year, Matt and his wife invited all of us (Leah, Myself, the kids, Chris and our parents) up to his place for dinner on Boxing day. Couldn’t do it Xmas day cause that was when he and his wife spent time with her family. Personally, the day didn’t matter to me for reasons listed above and we all really enjoyed dinner up there last year. I guess it was stupid of me to assume things would go like the did last year, especially since relations with my brother and his wife were better. I went out and got some really sweet gifts for them, and when Mom & Dad got the call… only they were invited up. For reasons I was never given, Leah, Chris myself and the boys were not welcome up there this holiday. I can’t really jump on the phone and tell someone who they can and can’t invite up, but I was a little disappointed and a little hurt by the exclusion.

But I’m not writing here to point fingers. Maybe it was best I didn’t go up because I was definitely less than festive, and even that is an understatement. A bit of the bickering and squabbling could have been avoided if I wasn’t such a sour puss this year, but I have a lot on my plate so it’s been a little difficult to concentrate on the regular stuff. I’m still looking for work (no luck there), have an MRI booked in less than 3 weeks to find out whether or not that 6mm lesion in my head is life threatening, and my marriage is in councelling for many other reasons. Does that sound like someone who wants to be festive? They’re lucky I didn’t toss them out like an angry green ogre, and yet still it all falls down on my shoulders.

I didn’t want to be such a hum bug, but I can’t change the way I feel. Deep down inside, I want to crawl up into my bed and just lay there and sleep until my MRI, but I know that’s not realistic. It’s such a shame this holiday was such a bust for me because I might not get another chance to make up for it. I don’t want to sound like I’m already beaten, it’s just mentally I’m spent and don’t want to deal with anything anymore. But I have to, and whining and crying about it isn’t going to get anything done.

I really hope everyone else had a good holiday, and if I’m not back before the big day… have a happy new year.

Peter