Never Fly Too Close To The Sun

Traditions, Expectations, Assumptions

25th December (at the Mitchell household)

Christmas Day was among one of the best times of the year for the majority of students Beca knew - they loved the presents and huge meals with friendly relatives, but sadly it wasn't jovial for all. 

It was a couple of minutes past midnight and the teenager couldn't sleep. She lay on her bed, with her back sinking into the soft mattress and her eyes staring up into the blackness above her. Typically, this was due to a child being overexcited, and before Beca's parents split up that was how she felt. However, once she was no longer shadowed by both parents the relatives began to take interest in her at these annual meals..and she dreaded it.

What if she lost her already short temper and had an outburst? Or, worse, a mental breakdown like all those young models/celebrities whose parents forced them into the career path for money and not mental wellbeing? Beca had many fears and catastrophic  scenarios plaguing her thoughts. When her Mum had been there, she'd never had to deal with her relatives' questions and jibes because her parents (as a united force back then) would do all they could to keep their little daughter protected from pressuring queries and snide comments. Now, however, her Dad just tried to avoid them and protect Sheila - Beca was left to fend for herself.

As an attempt to reassure herself, the brunette went through the traditional day's events analysing it. She knew the greetings were manageable in the mid-morning, and it was all a bit hectic so no one really paid too much attention to the small teenager in the corner with a fake, toothy grin plastered on her face. Sure enough, a few relatives would make some height jokes at her and she'd have to laugh along as if they didn't repeat them EVERY year, but that still wasn't too bad. Then, she could go to her room for about an hour while all the adults had coffees and discussed politics, the economy, and other boring shit she wasn't interested in, and the young and badly behaved ones would fight over their newest technology from their stockings. Next would be presents - she'd be okay so long as she didn't let the patronising format of how the adults got their presents separately to her and the young children, and she could fake happiness & surprise at the awful gifts. That was still all okay, and she'd also then get 20 minutes to herself when taking her gifts up to her room and hiding for a bit. However, that was the peak of the day in Beca's opinion, as next was the playing of card games (where most of the older family members had to basically be given step-by-step instructions as to how to play each turn) which  was tedious and rather painful to endure. Then, it was the worst two parts - the meal and the coffee/tea round after the meal when questions were asked. Beca hated this because, firstly, her Dad was a patronising git to her at these events - no avoiding the truth or harsh reality there. Then, her relatives liked to probe conversational topics which were personal without realising they were intruding. This led to Beca's Dad telling her  off (loudly and in front of everyone) when she got offended and closed herself off from everyone.

Beca realised it may not seem like much trouble to anyone else, and just a white vaguely middle-class teenage girl in a first-world complaining. But, just because she lives in an 'MEDC' and isn't homeless doesn't change the fact she's upset by something, does it? The brunette understood and respected the issues she didn't but could have had, and was definitely grateful. However, this didn't prevent her from feeling sad at times. Instead, she'd get upset and then a little voice in her head would pipe up with this argument and tell her she's ungrateful and she'd end up feeling guilty for pitying herself when she had such a good life compared to many others in the world.

This battling set of thoughts circled the troubled girl's mind among others throughout the night, and she was denied sleep no matter what she did. There was a brief amount of time while Beca did sit-ups, press-ups and some back exercises on her bedroom floor that the thoughts seemed to grow dimmer. However, sure enough, they came flooding back at full volume once she collapsed, defeated.