So, I'm still here in Aberdeen. For the holidays. Thousands of miles from my family and native home and snow and people I love and warmth and pine trees and my mother's kitchen. Needless to say, I'm having a bit of a tough time of it.
I've never been one for homesickness-- I went away to college, missed a handful of holidays and birthdays for assorted and various reasons, some of them good and some of them not. This isn't the first time I've been a long way from home, but I've never had such a hollow feeling in my heart as I do now.
Christmas music makes me irrationally hostile. My lips compress, my eyes narrow, and I dig my fingernails into the underside of the table before I even recognized the tune. If I hear Mariah Carey one more time I may smash something. Why? I was never a huge fan of modern christmas music, but I used to really enjoy hymns and traditional carols and some solid 1950s holiday ablums... now I subconsciously avoid street corners with loudspeakers, shopping plazas and the walks behind the chapel on campus where groups seem to be perpetually singing. Now that I think about, it seems simple enough-- it all reminds me of home, but I'm not at home and can't get myself there, so I'm ignoring the problem. Fair enough.
But why is this so hard now? Is it because, for the first time in my adult life, I've put myself in a situation where I can't physically get myself home via my own means? Before I always had my car, I could have just hopped into the driver's seat, put the fuel on the credit card and driven through the night, clawing my way from rest stop to rest stop if necessary. Now I don't have that luxury, and I'm just now beginning to realize what a luxury it was. I've always been conscious of my attachment and fondness for my cars (all two of them that I've ever had) and my dependance on them, but this just opens up a whole new level. They were my mobility, my freedom, my escape pod. I could always get myself back home.
Now there's a big ocean between Munith and myself, and there's not a whole lot I can do about it. I called home a lot in the past couple of weeks, and I even called today without crying. I've cried more in the past moth than I have in the previous 12 months combined. I'm not a weepy person by nature, I don't think, but everytime I would get an e-mail from home or I'd hear the girls laughing in the background as I talked to mom, I couldn't get around the catch in my throat. I'd muscle through the rest of the call, not wanting to make the pain more acute for my mother, who has been rather querrelous this season as well, if my sisters' accounts are to be trusted, and I know that me not being home at this time of year is as hard on her as it is on me. However, once off the phone, I'd curl up on my chair or bed and cry like a little girl-- I'm not okay with this. Seriously. Not okay. I'm a grown-up, and grown-ups are sometimes alone on national holidays. These things happen and nobody dies. So why do I feel like my heart is breaking?
I'm currently house-sitting for a lecturer of mine from this past semester, watering plants and keeping company with their dog, Muki, who is a lovely, loyal creature if there ever was one. As I write this she keeps pacing back and forth in and out of the room, sitting now at my feet and gazing up at me. She follows me from computer to couch to window to kitchen and then back to the couch again. We've been going on walks and she gets me out of bed in the morning-- all in all, a very good thing. I'm infinitely grateful not to be the only beating heart in this abode.
I called home again this afternoon, and the crackle in the connection only emphasized the distance. I didn't cry, and somehow that was worse. I spoke to M3, and his sister is visiting him for the season. He's surprising her with a two-day trip to Paris for New Years, and they sound so happy. He finally got the package I sent him with a copy of Anna Karenina and a collected works of Shakespeare that I mailed 6 weeks ago, so I suppose that works as an inadvertent christmas present. He said he was sorry that I didn't have any family with me. I shrugged it off. How could I possibly explain?
My sister put up pictures of the tree and the decorating process at home, the making of pierogies, general festivities on the homefront, and though I begged her to do it, I didn't tell her how they pain me. They all look so happy and I just feel cold, even in my sweater. But I keep going back to them, sort of like the way you rub at a bruise and make it bigger in spite of yourself. To spite your self.
I walked down the block and found a little corner store run by a family of loud Pakistanis, and on a tip from a friend, found some polish pierogie. I bought two packages and fried up the one for dinner this evening. You see, dear reader, this is one of the traditions that I just can't replicate in my single solitude. It takes a whole day and every member of my family to pull of the hundreds of cheese and potato pierogie that we make, then fry up with onions and eat on christmas eve and christmas morning. The smell and spattering grease get into everything, like laughter and snowflakes. These are the trappings that I miss. The pierogie that I fried this evening were cottage cheese and raisin, and despite not being anything like what I'm used to, were just fine. Very filling, and as close to home as I could really expect on this island. I'll save the other for tomorrow evening, which I'm sure will be equally delightful.
I didn't even really realize that today was christmas eve until I sat down at my computer and looked at the date. I remember driving home from midnight mass by myself in a recently past year, stopping to buy gas, and think that, without all the human interaction, there was nothing in the air that would have told me it was christmas. Nothing that seemed special or unique or out of the ordinary. I was utterly devoid of the "spirit of the season." I guess I still am, but now I'm also without the driving human forces of home. I didn't put up a tree or even a bush, no boughs festooned my door, no smell of pine, no lights in the window. I thought about buying a string of lights and hanging them over my desk or maybe in my one window, but then I thought about my deminished funds and the general lack of outlets. I decided against it for these very practical reasons without delving into the impractical, embarrassing reasons of lonliness and disenchantment.
I didn't find a vigil mass to go to this evening. To be honest, it's been a really, really long time since I've gone to church. Even longer since I genuinely prayed. I think I've read too much philosophy to pray well anymore. I almost tried a few nnights ago, but just couldn't bring myself to make an honest try. So I rolled over and manhandled my pillow into a new shape and tried to sleep.
But I brought two different red sweaters, grey pants and a pair of stilletos with me for tomorrow, google-searched a church that will be open. I think mass might be at 10 down near the city center, which means I need to leave here around 9. I'm going to try. At least I've made the effort so far, the lead up to actually going, so I can't use that as an excuse. If I decide against it later, it's a decision and not a consequence.
I need to go to sleep. Muki has given up on me. In the process of writing this, it's turned from christmas eve to christmas day. No one will come wake me up in the morning, no hurrying of little-girl-bare-feet-over-carpet, no jumping on my bed to wake me up and haul me downstairs, no mom in her robe turning on the coffee pot and christmas lights, no stocking over the fireplace. There's a fireplace here, in the house I'm watching for the season, and I've lit a fire the past two nights, but it's long out now. Muddy Waters sings to me through the speakers, I've got a cheap bottle of white wine and somebody else's dog leaning heavily against me.
So this is what it feels like to be a grown-up.
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