Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Post Holiday Blues and Social Life

It would appear that I'm more sensitive than the average bear.

I always hated when the "holiday/weekend" was over. I hated when it ended.

This past Christmas was no exception; except that there WAS an exception: it did not last long enough.

My parents and brother arrived Sunday evening. My parents stayed nights with grandpa, and my brother and his girlfriend stayed with us. They left yesterday. They were here a short 2 days.

THAT SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Usually we had a nice holiday time. People were off work, we played games and had a fun time, and it lasted more than a weekend. Even though it was Sun-Mon-Tues, it felt like Fri-Sat-Sun. And that sucks.

Top that off with some good old family drama (not mine), and I've got a particularly bad case of the blues today. It is good I suppose that I've spent LITERALLY the past 5 hours sorting through LEGOS. We got our son a 3 drawer system for his Lego storage, and so I wanted to get them "organized" into that, and he mixed in a Lego game into his play legos, so I had to sort through and find those pieces and put the game back together. It literally took more than 5 hours to do this. I just finished, sore back, sore neck, tired, and cranky, but relieved that the job is finished and things are sorta organized.

I've still got the dominoes (on double 2) sitting out on the table, which still has both leaves in it. So I should probably take at least one leaf out, and maybe teach our son how to play dominoes.
My only thing I'm looking forward to in the near future is New Year's Eve and a dr appt on the 3rd. I'm hoping someone will join us for New Year's, but I have my doubts. It has been very depressing that no one has hung with us for New Year's Eve in years. Maybe my in laws will come over, but they don't stay long anymore, other things are apparently much too important (our feelings). We used to have a guy who was home every year and would come over - a friend of my husband's, but he hasn't been home for the holidays in a few years. My parents never were New Year's people. And I'm guessing that because we don't serve alcohol, no one cares to come over. It is really depressing.

My birthday is coming up next month as well, the big 3-0. I have these dreams of what I would LIKE to do (a limo, fancy dresses, dinner out somewhere, my besties coming from the far away states they live in to be here with me... yes, I'm talking to you Idaho and Oklahoma!).... but I'm going to guess I will be lucky to get cake and a dinner 2 miles from home.

People with Aspergers are "known" for not being the most social people. We are awkward, we feel awkward, we don't know what to say or do most of the time. Socially things are never easy. But that doesn't mean that we want to be left alone completely. I do crave the occassional game night and having people over and doing something fun. It doesn't take a lot, I don't require much out of a friendship, but somehow it seems that people are much too busy. Maybe they are taking care of those friendships that are more high maintenance? I mean, I know everyone struggles with money, and I'm pretty much an hour from most of the people I would care to have over, very few exceptions there. It is still lonely, and I still get disappointed that it never works out. We used to have people over a lot. We used to have great birthday parties and get togethers. I don't know why or how those went away. But it's disappointing. 

Anyway. The holidays can really suck. I wish I could go into a ton of details, but I hate when things get back around to people, when I just need to vent. But honestly, I am sick of it. We have tried as a family unit to make our own plans, control our own lives, and make it as fair as possible. We wanted to nix the running around thing when we were first married, so we had everyone come here, but that always ended up being stressful. When we were celebrating separately last year (due to circumstances beyond our control), it worked so well, it felt so relaxed and comfortable. So this year we thought we would work it out that way too, but we were STILL trumped. We were still forced into the stressful pain in the butt schedule that we've had to experience before. No respect for our schedule, opinion, feelings or plans, because they weren't scheduled by someone else.

Next year things will be different. We will do what we have to do, but if we end up having one Christmas on Christmas and the other on New Year's, then so be it. We are not playing games with our schedule, we are not going to be messing around when we've got 2 kids to deal with on sleepless holiday schedules, we are not going to let someone else control what we do and when we do it. There is going to be ONE family Christmas for one side, and ONE for the other, OR there will be one for both. Both me and my husband were distracted, frustrated and overwhelmed by the constant nagging, guilt tripping and passive aggressive behaviors that went on this Christmas, and we are not putting up with it anymore.

Anyway. It's easy to say that we've had it with the bull. I am glad that I am not the one who brought this up, and that I am not the one complaining (mostly because I'm not the one getting the passive aggressive phone calls). Next year will be different. I don't know how, I don't know what is going to happen, and I don't know how we are going to manage to get the rediculous behavior to end. But one way or the other, we are ending it.

It would be a whole lot easier if we would just be able to move, then there wouldn't be many choices in the matter. You come, you stay the "holiday weekend" and then you go home; none of this eat, presents leave garbage. It's like, its not even about family, its about the food and presents, and the heck with ya. That is not what Christmas is all about.

I'm glad we were broke this year and hardly bought anyone anything. Though I felt really bad about most of that, really honestly, a part of me didn't feel bad at all. Because we never get any quality time, just food, presents, and boom, over.

Just venting. It sucks to have to deal with this. 

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