Midnight Reflections

What used to be the season of cheer and love has now turned to fear and scarcity. I remember my first Christmas with a boyfriend. I was so happy, so irrevocably in love and the most excited I had ever been. Seasonal depression had left my body immediately.

He was a ray of sunshine. He lit up my world and warmed my heart. I couldn’t have been any happier. 

“Oh, golden boy, don’t act like you were kind. You were mine but you were awful every time.”

He always came home for the holidays but things are different now. He’ll come home, but I’m no longer his home. This Christmas is starting to feel like ‘Last Christmas by Wham!’

Jack Frost bit at my nose and now I’m stuck in the freezing cold. Christmas has always been my favorite holiday, I always felt like I was made to be a winter baby. Growing up, I always loved love. I wanted a baby in the winter. A baby to kiss, hold and cherish. A baby underneath my tree as the greatest gift.

I was gifted it for three years and now it’s gone away. My baby is gone. 

“And the toughest part is that we both know what happened to you. Why you’re out on your own. Merry Christmas, please don’t call.”

I know it’s technically a good thing. I should be happy to finally be alone after endless months of feeling empty inside. I just can’t help but mourn the happiness I had when I was in love during Christmas.

I’ll never feel the excitement of spending Christmas with my first love again. Sure, I’ll find a new love someday and I know it’ll be the greatest of times. However, I did have a great love already and though he ruined it for us, I still feel responsible for no longer having it.

I feel weak. I feel like I just might call him for Christmas. I want my sisters to just take my phone and hide it every time he’s in town. Keep me on watch and lock me in a cage. 

I hear endless lectures on why I shouldn’t feel the way I feel.

“You shouldn’t feel guilty for moving on, you did everything you could for two years.”

“He had his chances to change and chose not to. It’s not your fault.”

“You don’t know what he could be doing or thinking so you shouldn’t feel guilty for feeling.”

“He’s your first love, of course he’s your blueprint but that doesn’t make him your only.”

I thought doing everything I possibly could to save us would not only help our relationship but help me not feel guilty for leaving. 

I know I deserve to move on this Christmas. It scares me knowing I won’t be going into the new year with him. He’s been my new year’s kiss for four years. I thought he would be forever. New Year’s was always his day. I know he did that to himself. I know I can’t do anything about it.

I know going back to someone I no longer know or want to know will serve my heart no justice. I know I have to reach my goal in not seeing him one last time this year. It’s nothing that I don’t already know. 

A girl can only add one thing on her Christmas list in hopes Santa listens. 

Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call by Bleachers

-A