I took some pride in saying that I didn’t give a fuck about Christmas. I really didn’t. But it was so much easier to say that when I was in Chile, surrounded by my people, my known world, the common everyday stuff. No surprises. No uncertainties -or no uncertain uncertainties, at least. It was easy not to care, not to give a shit.
Today, I woke up early. My usual insomnia, acting up again. I got up, went to the kitchen, started preparing myself some breakfast and, as usual, played some music in my Bluetooth speaker. Just then, it hit me. Maria Mena’s Home for Christmas in Norwegian. Fuck me. The tears started pouring out. I remembered when my ex showed me that song for the first time, two years ago. And I, of course, felt that deep hole in my deepest self, that open wound that never stopped hurting. I missed her and, for a second there, the pain was too much to handle. I sat on the kitchen floor, weeping. Then, I played the same song, but in English this time. My mum popped inside my head. The tears now became a wild river, running down my face. I cried like a baby. Missing her. Missing it all.
There’s this crushing feeling of loneliness that hits me every now and again. It’s a short-lasting, but acute pain in my chest, piercing through my very heart. This time around, I can’t say I felt that specific pain. It was something different. Homesickness. Nostalgia. Regret. All combined in images, smells, sensations, sounds, faces. All in the form of the two only people I have ever really cared about. Both of them, women that gave me life, in a literal and poetical sense. Both of them, objects of my outermost and profound feelings of affection. Both of them away.
Yesterday I met someone new, somebody I liked, and it’s fucking scary. So many things can go wrong, so much pain could be in store for us. But, as always, the future is uncertain. Just as hitting the next key, writing the next word, expressing the following thought; nothing is a given. Nothing. Just as now. When everybody else around me is meeting their families, their friends, their significant others and closest ones. Taking them for granted. When the world prepares to receive “Baby Jesus,” one more time. When my tears are ever-present, waiting to drop at the thought of my mum or L, my ex.
It is a sad Christmas, indeed. Yet, in the palpable suffering this brings to me, I find comfort. This pain is relieving and essentially positive. For I am a sentient being. I’m human. I long for people, for their kind presence, for their affection. I love, and I have been and I am loved in return. Life is good. Ironically and not. Life is fucking good.
Merry Christmas, people.
