SANTA BABY

-Fortune Cookies-

This is not a story about the meaning of life or Christmas, it's just a sad chronicle of 24 days of damn advent, a family quarrel, then a drunken spree, and finally 12 damn chimes.

Carmen is 27, and as she says, 30 is breathing down her neck. Aging is difficult for everyone, but for women, it's worse; society punishes them for this crime as if their value plummets just because of a few silver hairs and some wrinkles around the eyes. Many may say that things have changed over the years, but don't be fooled or believe what "responsible" advertising wants to sell us; as proof, go to the cosmetic department of any damn supermarket and count the number of anti-aging or "beauty" products aimed at women, and then do the same with creams featuring footballers on their labels. Next, look online at the number of jokes about "aunties" and the number of jokes about men over 30, and finally, ask your female acquaintances what they think about dating someone older and then do the same with the men around you, then you'll understand Carmen's systematic trauma, who knows perfectly well that a man with gray hair is "interesting," but a woman with gray hair is either neglected or very confident (which only applies if you're a diva of cinema, fashion, or music, because for mere mortals you're just a "mistress someone"), and all this encompasses one more message, that men remain desirable throughout their damn existence, while women stop being considered beautiful as soon as we leave the status of "young girls." A 17-year-old girl with a man her father's age is permissible (even if it's not legal, it's socially accepted, and worse, justified), but a 30-year-old woman with a 25-year-old man is laughable. Carmen knew it, the internet had told her, her aunts too, and her married friends made sure she didn't forget that the clock was running mercilessly.

Another damn year had gone by, fulled with work to be able to pay the bills, which left her tired and with few pennies to go out, so for who knows which consecutive year, she was alone at the end of the year. This was not just about not being married, was about literally being alone. Her friends had entered a new stage of their lives (they called it maturing) which meant that family and work occupied 90% of their universe. The few who were fortunate enough not to be there were because they were at a much higher and difficult to achieve level called "financial freedom," which only happens when you're a rich heir or have many followers on OnlyFans and enjoy wearing little clothing. Other than that, achieving it is almost impossible, because in this era, common jobs pay just enough to live and the cost of living is very high, so since she didn't have money to be sunbathing in Hawaii, nor did she have a partner to fill the voids in her schedule; she was alone. Her family lived just 15 minutes away from her apartment and a phone call away, but she wished they were two continents apart, because when they were together, it was only to fight and argue, hurling hateful comparisons and grievances that mostly had to do with her economic status.

In the office, she wasn't exactly the most popular girl, however, she didn't do badly, she had more or less good colleagues who supported her whenever they could, and her relationship with her boss was atypical, meaning they really got along well. With the end of the year, the Human Resources department thought it would be motivating for everyone to write a letter to their "Self from a year ago" boasting about all their achievements, and one to their "Future Self" asking about their concerns, supposedly the goal was to appreciate personal achievements and make a plan for the future. Everything was going well until Carmen tore off two pages, not knowing what to say to herself that would make her feel proud. She could talk about her good numbers in the department's statistics or her salary increase, but... was that what made her happy and what she would remember in 20 years? She wasn't sure. Seeing herself in the future was even more difficult. In her (still naive) dreams, she liked to imagine herself owning a coffee shop while talking to customers about recipes, books, concerts, and pets, but it was a difficult project, especially if you consider that in a gentrified city like hers, rents are extremely high. On the other hand, she has never been able to imagine herself married (perhaps because her parents' marriage has only been filled with fights and insults), but she did like to imagine herself with a fun man with whom to walk the dog she rescued the previous Halloween, when her thwarted plans made her go out for a drunken walk and she fell to the ground after tripping over a soapbox. That say she got the surprise of her life; inside was a small white and crying puppy. It was the cutest and most defenseless thing she had ever seen, its eyes seemed to tell her that they both had found their destiny. Since there were no rules about pets in her building, they rescued each other, because since then Carmen hardly drinks, while the puppy has food, a warm rug with a blanket (because it destroyed every bed from the pet store) and lots of attention, that was a winning deal; the lives of both became a little less bad after meeting each other. Carmen liked to imagine meeting new and fun people and having a great New Year's party with her friends. She also liked to imagine moving and decorating the wall of her living room with her favorite vinyl records, including the autographed LP of David Bowie that was an inheritance from her great aunt. But sadly, things were not heading in that direction. She was a simple girl, with simple desires and a tender heart. She didn't expect to become a millionaire or a TikTok star; for her, a fun life filled with interesting and loving people was enough. Despite that, it was as difficult for her to get what she wanted as if her project had been to walk around the moon. Thinking about that depressed her immensely, especially at that time of year when everything demanded joy and a false image of perfection. Now Carmen understood why suicides increased at Christmas.