Well, I think I’m just about over it: ‘it’ being Christmas, holidays and other welcome and not-so-welcome interruptions to my dull, but comfortable routine. I’m not alone in my quiet post-festive melt down. I have spoken to other depleted mothers whose homes burst at the seams for a week or so and who are now left feeling hollow, quiet and flaccid.
At my age and stage, Christmas becomes less and less about gifts, turkey dinners, drunken relatives and Father Christmas. For me, it is the long awaited, greatly anticipated, once-a-year return of my two grown up sons. I begin preparing early—not baking or making crafts—just getting excited about the impending visit.
I have done this for a few years now and am no longer naive enough to imagine that when they arrive we are going to sing Carols around a fake tree, challenge one another over a cosy game of Snakes ‘n Ladders, or even enjoy more than one or two significant meals together. They come home to rest, unravel, share a cold, ‘party’ and are soon bored—particularly during the daylight hours. Each one nurses his own laptop, cell phone in hand, texting people the rest of us have never met. There’s usually a hockey game on TV in the background with general whelps of delight or anger coming from the couch at regular intervals. The couch becomes the centre of our universe. Eventually, I wander off to bed and the youngsters begin their evening of debauchery, often returning home as the sun and I get up to begin another day.
For most of the year I live alone but for seven intense days around Christmas time my house is full of large feet, lads coming and going at all hours, rap music and profanity, bottles being opened, glassware and dishes disappearing from kitchen cupboards, and laughter – lots of it. My fridge hinges are exhausted—there’s always someone opening and closing the door, peering within to see if the shelves have grown some new food since they last checked … just minutes earlier.
We pass one another somewhere around the couch. I carefully try not to ask too many questions or repeat my offers of food, tea and Scrabble. I try not to appear to need to know if they will be remaining home for dinner or that it matters to me if they do or don’t. Through absolutely no fault of their own, they have enough juggling to do as they tactfully divide themselves between two households.
Then, all too soon it’s over. The last son slams the front door and drives off into God-knows-what kind of weather and I burst into tears—the tears I have so carefully restrained for the past few days as I have anticipated their departure.
I’m exhausted. It’s completely quiet now as if the very heart of the house has been sucked out. Part of me is angry—angry at how easily they can just come and go, grunt and tussle, leaving bedrooms that look like bombs went off in them. Wasn’t something ‘meaningful’ supposed to happen between us all? Like what? I ask myself.
And then I remember, it was all meaningful. It was time spent together. It was everyone on their best behaviour slowly and inevitably reverting to their less-best behaviour. It’s what safety, comfort and familiarity are all about. It’s a blessing. I miss them awfully and yet I am relieved the concentrated few days are over and that my sons are returning to the lives I’m so proud I helped prepare them for.
The post-Christmas meltdown is about all the mixed feelings that go with continually having to redefine my role and position as a parent. It is about the intensity of my anticipation before their arrival; the expectations that were exceeded and the expectations that weren’t met; the realization that there are places in their lives I no longer belong and places in my life they no longer fit. It is love at its most raw and most vulnerable. It is the culmination of all I ever wanted and much of what I feared.
