Merry Single Holiday!

Hello, and Merry Christmas!  It is holiday I spend alone -- not by choice, but by circumstance.  And while it can be just a tad lonely for a few moments, this is only one in a very long string of holidays that happen this way.   Because I work retail. 

It's very difficult to make the time for a holiday in which there won't be any time.  I always work the day before Christmas, and the day after Christmas.  Which leaves exactly one day to do what needs doing.  I guess if I forced myself in a different mode, I could accomplish everything, but at my age is that something I want to do?   I could drive two+ hours to my daughters home to spend a part of the day.  Which would always include my ex-husband in some way.  I spent many holidays with him in the past, and don't wish to include him in my current holidays.  I suppose that in the effort to keep the family peace, I could make an exception -- which I do on various birthday and wedding occasions -- but Christmas has a more personal feel to me and the thought of being stuck indoors and having little to say .....  I don't care to have any kind of discussion about my life, or my family's life with him and his wife.  So we'll just leave it at that.  It's just easier if I let my children have their day with family who can be there with them, be there for them. 

I usually take the time to let myself "feel" on this Holiday.  I look at old photos, remember the good times when I was a kid, sharing Christmas with my siblings.  I remember the winters in Ohio, trudging through snow, taking snapshots of a way of life that I hadn't known (I grew up in sunny CA) and I also take time to sit in the backyard of the home I own, drinking in the Arizona sunshine.  It was a bit on the cool side today, but that didn't stop me! 

I've come a long way in my lifetime.  I've started over after three different divorces, and choose to remain single now.  I think that relationship status has gotten a bad rep over time.  It's funny how the word conjures up an image of a woman with ... loose morals, one night stands, hanging out with other lonely hearts at a bar.  That's not it at all!  I have time to do the things I enjoy - taking Sadie for a walk every day is both a chore and a pleasure.  If I want to shop, I do it when it pleases me.  Same with laundry, cooking and cleaning.  And I find nothing wrong with that at all! 



This post is both a little maudlin and defensive.  But sometimes it feels I have to defend the life I choose.  And that's not right.  It's my choice, and I choose single. 

"You can put all your effort in trying to make someone happy... 

but there comes a time when we become tired of trying to fill a bucket 

that is leaking from the inside." 

-Steve Maraboli