It felt almost instantaneous that as soon as the calendar read September 23, time transported us to the Holiday Season. Sure, we all had our Halloween candy and our Thanksgiving turkey dinner, but the holiday most people are enthusiastic about is Christmas. We are inundated by the optimal gifts, the sweets, the nostalgia of what Santa meant to us as children and the child-like wonder and anticipation for this seemingly magical experience wrapped in ribbon and tinsel. The t.v. commercials and the radio songs stir up a whirlwind of giddiness, joy, laughter, family and friends, as if to force us into a cheerful mood and strip us of our freedom to choose our emotions, at least up until New Year’s Eve.Whenever this time of year comes around for me, I am reminded of my mother taking my sister and I to the mall to pick out our Christmas dresses for church, only for us to kick off our patent leather shoes, use our coats as a makeshift bed on the pews and fall asleep during service and awaken for the excitement of our traditional Christmas dinner.As sweet and innocent as those memories may be, these days, that’s not my current reality. My loneliness and sadness have only been compounded year after year. The sadness that I feel doesn’t stem from any scarcity in my life, but more so, a feeling that something, or someone, is missing. Although I have been in a few long-term relationships that spanned over the holiday season, I don’t have a single good memory of sharing it with a significant other. As in previous years, I find myself asking, when will my time come?Yes, I pride myself on being independent and self-reliant, but I still long for those moments to share with another to go to family…
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