While Christmas Day itself was a non-event, as desired, it still resulted in feeling fragile. We had 8hrs in a car driving home, and besides the brunch we’d made together before leaving, we survived on petrol station food (only thing open on Christmas Day!) & candy – so by the time we arrived back in our township I was tired & cranky, and full of feels. I can only assume it was the sitting for hours with too much space to think that brought the wave of feels on. Mr then insisted in popping by his parents for a quick Christmas drink (they live 2kms from our house…), being social was the last thing I felt like doing, but he didn’t want to wait til the next day when we’d be fresh (he was going back to work late morning) so I reluctantly agreed. They’re super positive people, I sometimes wonder if they can even feel ‘negative’ emotions, so when I said “I’m ok” rather than “I’m great”, they jumped on the phrase, asking “why only Ok?” – I think I was also feeling a bit defensive, feeling like they expected me to be great because we’d been away, and I’d got my way of not having a family Christmas…..who know’s, I’m good at making stuff up so that could all be in my head. I managed to brush the inquisition off by saying I was tired from being in the car all day. They of course went on to tell us all about what Mr’s siblings were doing for the day, and all about the grandkids etc. Last thing I wanted to listen, to but I tried to appear interested & present. Then they showed a video clip of the youngest grandkid walking (he’s only just started)….the phone was handed to me so I watched that clip then set the phone down, however my FIL said ‘oh there’s another clip, just swipe for it’, I really didn’t want to watch another video of someone else’s baby walking, so just said “It’s ok” and set the phone down on the coffee table. Unfortunately it was within reach of him and he picked it up, found the clip and held it in from of me to watch….no escaping that then. Luckily Mr didn’t insist on visiting for too long and we were home shortly afterwards.
I never can tell if he just isn’t aware or if he chooses to ignore it if I don’t seem to be in a good mood because he doesn’t like dealing with the uncomfortableness. He never acknowledge the visit might have been difficult…he loves hearing about his niblings so it probably didn’t cross his mind.
Christmas Day was finally over, and I naively thought that was it. However, Boxing Day came, and with it a whole new wave of feels. I’d been so focussed on surviving Christmas I hadn’t put a care plan in place for the days after….silly really, when I know in the past the days after have been just as hard. Mr went back to work and there I was at home with only myself for company……I don’t much like my own company at the best of times. I’d thought I’d be focussed and super productive on my Uni work and therefore not have much time for feels. Unfortunately it’s really easy to be thinking & feeling stuff about non-uni related things at the same time as doing Uni work…..though my productivity levels were nowhere near as high as I need them to be….distracted by the feels, and having had a week of indulgent eating, I just wanted to eat my feels…..yes I had medicinal ice cream in the afternoon.
One too many Christmas Pregnancy Announcements finally pushed me to log out of my social media accounts and take a break – I’d planned to for the time we were away, but hadn’t…justified to myself by the fact I was watching lovely twitter people donating to charities on behalf of other twitter people (if you’re on twitter look at the #nzsecretsantasubstitute hashtag for some kindness stories). The irony of course, is without the distraction of social media, I’m even more alone with my thoughts, but scrolling mindlessly through social media just leaves me feeling lonely & left out, and reminds me of my childless state, so either way I can’t win.
Thankfully I have some fun plans in place for New Years Eve and the days that follow, so hopefully as I get further away from Christmas and closer to the New Year, the feels will reduce in intensity for the time being. And hopefully I’ll be visited by a burst of productivity that will see my Uni work actually progress!Β And thankfully my favourite local cafe reopened today, so at least I have good coffee to get me through!
Did you get caught out by the Boxing Day Blues too?