The dissonance is so much worse this time of year. Christmas is not important to me. Matt and I were not big holiday celebrators. The last year he was here, we did get a tree, he got us new stockings, and we did presents. But it was because we wanted to. Not because it was expected. I don't know. I just hate this time of year because of the dissonance between my way of doing things and the requests and expectations of my parents. With Matt here, it was fine. Tolerable. Still a drain, but we had each other. We had the same thoughts and feelings about the whole thing. We had sounding boards in each other. Reflection. Validation.

What is left is just the wrongness, the annoyance, the dissonance. The difference between my parents and me is so much  louder when there are things expected, "celebrations" expected - and I am feeling it so much. And "going along with it," agreeing to attend these events that are not meaningful to me, I am so full of resentment. I am a twisted wreck, and I am tired and so incredibly fucking sad that my real family, my match, is not here anymore. My parents are not bad people. They're fine. But I am and always have been an oddity to them. And now there is the added trying very hard that they are doing. Which I feel like a jerk for not enjoying. They want so badly for me to be happy. I know. But what was true before is still true now: I don't like bags full of presents I don't like and can't use. I cannot get excited for cartoon christmas movies. Giving me more and more of the things I do not like will not make me like them. We are not a close family, and pretending we are wears on me.

It's just family stuff.

In the Before, I had my reality check. I had perspective. I had - I don't know how to say it. Affirmation? Confirmation? Alliance? Matt and I lived in the same reality. Same context. We talked about family stuff. We found humor in it, drew lines in it, supported each other, listened. Now I feel like there is just dissonance and I am alone in it. I feel even more like a jerk, because while I am not rude, I do not have half the calm gracefulness I could muster when he was here. When I was calm and rooted and far more able and willing to say No to things that weren't true for me. Now I am far more likely to be a passive crab about it, which irritates me, and then I start crying again. I want him here to not have obligatory celebrations with. I want the man who thinks like me. The one who sees no conflict at all in having fun decorating a christmas tree while not really caring to get presents, give presents, or call up family members. I've got no team anymore. I've got no one like me, not even me. I fucking hate christmas.


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