It’s December

and I’m going to discuss what Christmas and holidays mean to me. I don’t have any family that I can spend time with here. I have some on the West Coast though they never visit me And never will.

So, for me, holidays have been a sore spot for a long time because I have not been able to have contact with a lot of my siblings for several years. And holidays have changed for me overtime when I was younger as everyone probably knows it was more about getting gifts and eating too much and seeing the family cooking picking out a Christmas tree decorating the Christmas tree, making Christmas candies coming home for a break from school so I can sleep a nap and catch up on what everybody has been up to, but a big part of it for me was being around young children in my household and watching the reactions on Christmas morning when they freak out over some little toys. Seeing that joy and being able to just hang around each other is something that was very special to me for Christmas. Know if you’ve ever gone through anything with your family where there is a divide or you know usually people don’t agree on something and that causes them to avoid each other or not plan events together or spend time together.

Well this is the case with my family because there was a lot of toxic negative abusive behaviors that I grew up with and came home from college to see other families and how they work which was not the same. And I’m not saying that every family or their perfect families at nineperfect families out there, all of us have our shit if you will but the things going on in my household were not acceptable and after spending time with other people‘s families I realized the way I was being treated was not OK. I had to be the one to make the decision to stop seeing my family and enjoying those comfortable nostalgic moments with my siblings who I love very much. That was super hard for me because I want to take care of them and make sure they’re OK because I love them but at the same time I have to take care of me. As you know you become the five people that you hang around the most and I knew that I wanted to be positive, I knew that I wanted to achieve some very large goals in my life, I knew that I needed to be around people that truly believe in my abilities. And nobody will take care of you but you.

While this hurts me and for about two years holidays were pretty painful for me I re-centered my thought process and realized that I have some people in my life who are not blood family but they welcome me and love me no matter what. I’ve got a girlfriend and her husband who have loved me since we are in college together. I’ve always been a little off because there was a lot of internal pain that I needed to deal with that really didn’t want to involving my family. Because once you admit that there’s a problem you’re worried that people will judge you. But at the end of the day things that I was brought into or grew up around those things were not my choice. But as an adult the things that I do right now are my choice so I can either live in the past and blame everybody for their mistakes or I can make the right choices for me now and move forward in the direction that I need for me. and my friends are prime example of this because as I’ve gone through changes or worried about people judging me and leaving me they never have so that just shows me what unconditional love looks like. They invite me for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, for any holidays where I don’t have family either around or I’m not able to see them on the West Coast that year. Because like I mentioned I’m the only one that puts an effort for my West Coast family to see them, they never come to Texas to see me, never have. There is only one person in my family who has come to Texas to see S for graduations and what not and though she is too ill at this point to fly here anymore I still see her once to twice a year. That is my “Memere” or how the French Canadians/arcadians say grandma. She has always planted a seed in my head for me to call her and tell her what I’m up to or what I’m pursuing and she has always gone out of her way to help me pursue what it is that I’m doing. Like when I wanted to take a general admissions test in college and I was studying in my adopted dad’s storage unit Every day for a month I asked to use the family card to get me to the gym and my parents wouldn’t let me because at the time they didn’t want to pay for my gas to get to the gym. So my grandma snapped me some money and she gave me the ability to exercise and keep my mind right while I was studying for this really hard dental admissions test exam. That’s just one example in in college she used to send me care packages when my parents never did, and one year when it was parents day on campus they actually flew down from Oregon then traveled three hours down to college station to be my “parents for the day“. I have had unconditional support from this grandma.

She taught me that I’m great and I’m capable of anything. I’m so glad that she put that see you in the back of my mind because eventually I fully believed it. So for me holidays are about spending time with those who love you and show you with their actions not just their words that they really do. Are used to think it had to mean that I was with my blood family but as I’ve gotten older I realize people can love you without being related to you at all and for this I’m very grateful for these people!

And the reason I feel comfortable writing these types of blogs and journal entries is because the company culture behind the apartment clean fosters open emotional communication, being honest and doing what you say you’re going to do every time. And I promised that I would be honest and transparent. So here I am.

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