Walls

Chapter 13- Christmas Cookies

December 23rd, 2014:
It's that time of year. The time when you walk into the bitter New York air and hustle through the holiday traffic to every store you can think of and buy gifts for your loved ones. Every store window is carefully decorated with Christmas cheer and all those oh so expensive things they hope you'll buy. There's a Santa on every corner, ringing a bell looking for money. Whether the money is for charity or pot, they're always there, every year. The air smells of pine and peppermint hot chocolate and there is all your favorite holiday foods surrounding you.  It's the season I run the stores in my beanie, fluffy coat, and cozy boots and buy every string of lights I can get my hands on, as screaming teens try to follow along. Christmas has always been the thing I keep the most normal in my life. I run around the house throwing lights around every window and putting trees in my bedroom and living room. It's the season I make Ed more peppermint, eggnog, Christmas doused cookies than he can eat. It's my favorite season.
Correction...
It was my favorite season.

Ed and I stuff all the gifts for our families into the back of the car. We put the cats in the back seat and grab the containers of the 5 dozen cookies I backed. Basically my entire living family tree gathers at my moms house every year and this year the Sheerans are joining us. We have dozens of gifts, suitcase for all our clothes and more food than you could fathom, all in one car.

I throw my pillow, throw blanket, and car charger in the car. We do one last sweep around the house to make sure we have everything. I put the last swiftmas gift I have to mail under my arm and we get in the car. First we go to the post office and mail off the gift for a fan I communicate with on tumblr.

After shipping it off we return to the car, put my mom's address in the GPS and get on the road. I plug in my IPod and my Christmas playlist plays through the speakers. Ed and I sing loudly along to the familiar words. We're wearing matching Christmas sweaters and the car smells of cookies and pine trees from the cookies and air freshener.

As we get stuck in traffic, Ed pulls out one of the thousand containers of cookies and puts them between us. I pick one up and mindlessly shove them into my mouth. An hour later and hardy any change in the traffic later, we've eaten a dozen cookies. 6 buttery, sugary, calorie filled cookies. And we'll be in this car all day, working off not a single one of these calories.
I'm trying to stay calm, but for some reason I'm getting that feeling I used to get. Before I went to treatment and restored. I'm shaking and i feel tears welling. I want to throw up, but I can't. I can't tell Ed that I'm having these feelings again. He'd throw me right back in a treatment center. I can't go through that again. I won't.