Why The Holidays are Hard

I'll start by making an honest disclaimer: I enjoy playing the cynical scrooge so the Holidays have always been a time for me to be grumpy and difficult. And I like being begged to attend functions. Sick I know, but there it is. Plus, I am really, REALLY, OCD and have an extremely difficult time attending social functions (even with very close family and friends) for long periods of time. It's not so much that I'm socially awkward, although there is a little of that, as that I find it challenging to hold still and simply become engrossed in a bi-lateral conversation - one where I'm not doing all the talking. I think that's why I was a good lawyer and public speaker. Complete control of a conversation.

Ok. So, I woke up this morning and realized that I struggle with the Holidays because everything that is happening reminds me of what I can not ever have. I have accepted the fact that I am gay. I have made great strides toward seeing this as neither evil, negative, nor frankly as my "cross to bear" like I used to and like many of my friends in our online MoHo world do.

However, all of my life I have yearned to be what is often derisively referred to as a "sell out". I have wanted, and will always want, the whole package. While I no longer believe in the Mormon faith in particular, or any religion in general, I maintain that the Mormon lifestyle is the prime example of the way to lead a happy life. The works. Nice house, pretty wife, five beautiful children who will get married, have a bunch of kids and come visit for family dinners and the Holidays. Suburban in the driveway. Ward dinners. I loved all of that stuff. In fact, I think even as a teenager I pined for the pre-block days of ward family and ward family oriented activities pretty much all week long. Church was a safe, comfortable cocoon.

I woke up this morning and maybe for the first time really and truly realized I'll never have it. Yet everything around me reminds me of what I am missing. I love my brothers, but am jealous of their lives and families. They try their hardest to include me, and have stuck by me through some ugliness I can't begin to describe. A Holiday doesn't go by without them including me in many ways in the things their families do. Their children love me and are always happy to see Uncle ControllerOne. And I love it all. But it does remind me my brothers have what I never will. Same with my wonderful friends who ALWAYS make sure I have some place to be at traditional family times, almost to the point of obsessing over it.

Shoot, even the comics torture me. I love reading them, but let's face it Pickles, For Better or For Worse, Grand Avenue, Baby Blues, Zits, Luann - shoot even Drabble in a wacky way - remind me that life is about family and I'll never have one of my own. Only Dilbert, with Dilbert and Wally as lovable lone lonely loners (I feel like Sid from Ice Age), doesn't pick at the wound.

So I pulled myself out of bed, put my sheets in the laundry (which is an OCD must every Sunday morning), and wrote this whiny post. Thanks for listening and joining my pitty party. And, oh yeah, Happy New Year.