So another round of holiday festivities is over.  I may have mentioned before that holiday time is not necessarily my favorite time of year.  It hasn’t been for many years.  While I have learned to accept it, many others haven’t. But that’s an entirely different post.

Every Christmas I travel back to Pennsylvania to be with what remains of my family – my brother, his wife, my nephew, and my brother’s mother in law.  My parents are both deceased and we are not close to any other relatives.  When I lived there, I still traveled about 100 miles each way for two different Christmas dinners (one with my mom and one with my dad)…dragging gifts and my dog with me.  And since it is winter there would periodically be bad weather.  It wasn’t much fun.  At all.

Now the trip requires airline tickets (more of a pain every year), vacation days, dog boarding, careful gift buying to fit things into luggage, and travel to a cold place.  I no longer find it enjoyable but figure it’s the only family I have left and guilt forces me to go.

Anyway, this year was more irritating than most.  My brother was in rare form with criticisms and put downs (nicely veiled) of nearly everyone and everything.  By the second day, I was pretty much over everything but was trapped with no car and nowhere to go.

It occurred to me that I had changed since I left almost thirteen years ago and I was no longer on the same page as everyone else in the room.   So there I was, in a house full of people and feeling incredibly lonely.  And that made me think of the quote above.  When I am alone in my house, I am rarely lonely.  Bored sometimes but rarely lonely.  I missed my friends, I missed my house, and I missed my dog.  How odd to feel homesick when staying in a house with family.

By the time I left I was feeling angry, irritated and incredibly disappointed.  A lot of what was going on brought up old baggage from many years ago and it took awhile to put the bags away again. I have come to the conclusion that my brother is a “toxic person” for me.  He’s not a bad guy, not at all. Toxic people don’t have to be horrible people – they are just people who make you feel bad instead of good.

So I came home and felt myself once again surrounded by people who care, by people who are good for my soul, and by people who accept me flaws and all.

And now on to better things this year!