Normally the holiday season was my favorite time of the year. Everyone was in a much better mood (except when it came to shopping), there was always an abundance of baked goods, twinkling lights glowed through the fallen snow, everything was just... magical. And I loved it.
But this year all of that vanished for me. Decorating the tree was exhausting, wrapping presents was too much of a hassle for me to deal with, the thought of baking Christmas butter cookies made my stomach churn, I couldn't even bring myself to watch classic Christmas movies like How the Grinch Stole Christmas or The Year Without A Santa Claus.
When I awoke on Christmas morning, I couldn't get out of bed. I didn't want to. My favorite day of the entire year just seemed like a complete waste. Why did we even get presents on Christmas, anyway? It's Jesus' birthday, not ours! The entire holiday came off as a fake ordeal, to me. Everyone wakes up, pretends to be surprised at the gifts they receive (unless, of course, they are actually surprised), and then they have to deal with their family, whether they want to or not. We all have that one or two, three, four, ten family member that we'd really rather just not have to associate with any longer, yet we're almost always forced to for the holidays. And somehow we have to slip on our goody-two-shoes and play angels without wings around the bunch, parents included. Everything has to be perfect; for one day, nobody has any problems, and if they do they are discussed in a very hush-hush manner over a couple glasses of wine.
Honestly, why should I have to go through all that effort?
I rolled over to snatch my phone off of my bedside table. 8:17AM. No text messages. No Twitter notifications. Not even any new emails. So far it looked like I was unloved this Christmas.
No sooner had that thought crossed my mind when sister burst my bedroom door open, screaming "IT'S CHRISTMAS KELSEY GET UP TO OPEN PRESENTS NOW HURRY UP!" all in one breath.
Well, at least someone wanted me around today.
---
"Nobody bother me. I'm too full to function, okay." Sprawled out on the couch, I let my lungs welcome in the warm air in a measely attempt to make my stomach feel a little more empty. I was beyond stuffed, exhausted, and just over interacting with my extended family.
Being Italian meant feasting on Christmas. I"m not kidding. You have your casual hor d'oeuvres, then your antipasti with all the meats and cheeses to start. There's always some type of pasta dish, along with homemade sauce, meatballs, sausage, and brasciole. Man was it good. But you couldn't forget your meat entree, either! Throw in some vegetable dishes, maybe some soup, salad, bread, all spread out in several different courses.
And don't even get me started on dessert.
Much to my luck, nobody seemed to hear me over the loud banter flowing throughout the house. The mixture of Italians on my father's side and Germans on my mother's side created the perfect ear-splitting buzz at all times. I was used to it though - both the noise level and being ignored. No matter what I seemed to do I was always invisible, even to my own family.
Except, of course, in school recently but we all know the reasoning behind that.
So I layed there, observing all the hussle and bussle of the holiday around me as A Christmas Story continued on its last play of its annual 24-hour cycle on TBS. And in that moment, I was grateful that I would probably never receive a gift as embarrassing as Ralphie's pink bunny suit...
Hopefully.
Once my seemingly obnoxious family left, I quickly dried off some of the dishes my mom had washed before making my way upstairs for bed. As I bid her goodnight, she held my gaze and asked if I was all right.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Look! I'm even smiling to prove it to you!
She shifted her focus to the ground as she nodded her head. "Okay."
Cool. Sleepy time for Kelsey now!
"And I know you were probably expecting a car or something but it's coming. I promise," my mother added meakly. I couldn't believe what she had said. Were my parents really that worried about my loss of a car?
"Mom, you know I wasn't expecting anything. I know we don't have the money right now."
Again, she nodded. "Okay," she said with a sigh. "Well, goodnight. And Merry Christmas." We both smiled simultaneously before I finally made my way to my room.
After washing my face and changing into my warmest pajamas, I picked up my phone that I hadn't checked since well before dinner.
Huh. One new test message.
From Michael.
Interesting.
Merry Christmas! hope it was a good one he had written.
Oh. So, what, he could ignore me in person but by wishing me a Merry Christmas he thought it would all be okay? That everything would go back to how it used to be?
Not. So. Fast.
merry christmas to you too. I replied.
I heard my phone buzz in midair as I tossed it to the end of my bed. Whoever it was could wait, even though I knew it was probably Michael.
I still couldn't wrap my head around the fact that he actually wanted me to go to Brandon's New Year's Eve party with him. After being ignored for a while, it seemed like a trick, or some type of set-up. But would Michael actually do that to me? I wasn't too sure. Then again, I had only met him a little over a month ago; maybe I still wasn't fully aware of what this hard-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside boy was actually capable of.
Maybe I'll never know.
Whatever the case was, I would go. I would show my "ugly little face" at Brandon's house just to prove to everyone that they couldn't hurt me, that they couldn't bring me down that easily even if it was killing me inside. But I knew that if they saw how hurt I actually was, they would never let this thing go and would keep bothering me about it until graduation day. Even if they did let it go, they would find other things to pester me about, like my weight or how loud my voice is - not like they didn't target any of those traits before but they would definitely do it more frequently.
I hated it. I hated how even in middle school I was labeled as an easy target because I would get upset so easily at the things all the kids would say about me.
"You're so short. Get a ladder."
"What, are those volcanoes on your face?"
"God, stop being so loud!"
"Will you shut up for once in your life?"
"HEY THUNDER THIGHS! WHERE'S THE LIGHTNING?"
"Ew, you're never gonna be pretty enough for a boy to like you."
None of it was really all that bad, I guess (it was middle school!), but it certainly seemed like it at the time. I didn't have many friends, and the ones I did have I met at my dance studio, though they went to other schools.
And now I had to hide everything. If I kept everything inside and didn't let them see the damage they created, they would stop bothering me.
But they never did.
Crawling into bed and reaching over to the light on my bedside table, I wondered if this could be the year that I could find a way to make the hurt go away, once and for all. I could do it. I could find a way to make it work, to make it happen.
I flicked the light switch, illuminating the darkness of the night.
