Nightmare Before Christmas

Good evening, blogging universe. I'm typing to you from the comfort of my bed. I'm snuggled into my comforter and using the laptop as a heater. I have a lot I want to say, but I'm not sure how to put it into words. PW's advice on this would be to talk like I'm talking to my sister. Well, I don't have one of those nor do I have a brother. So, I will try to edit my stream of thought into a coherent form.

As Christmas approaches, I am starting to become depressed. I used to love this time of year. But something has changed and now the Christmas lights don't make me excited. I don't get that warm feeling when I think of Christmas movies or wrapping presents.

Note: I am one those freakish people who LOVE to wrap Christmas presents. I treat them like little pieces of art. The wrapping itself is like a tiny present from me.

Anyhow. None of that is making me feel warm or excited. I'm pretty sure I know WHY this is, but I won't get into that here. Not worth my fleeting moment of catharsis to go into that. Regardless, I am sinking into a depression and it's making me rather sad, as depression tends to do. The thought of Christmas just isn't appealing to me this year. Last year, around this time, no matter how much I hated my job or how miserable it made me, I was buzzing around the house, making goodies and planning a Christmas party and a gift exchange.

Where did that girl go? Where did I lose her? I adored doing those things for my friends and making them happy. I loved cooking with my friend Theresa, making meatballs and cheese-balls and god knows what else. I was like Jack in "Nightmare Before Christmas" when he discovers Christmas Town. "What's this??" The wonder and the delight. That was me, every year. And yet now - I have no desire whatsoever to do any of those things. I have no delight and I have no wonder. The only thing I seem to want to do is curl up in bed and not come out of it for a long time.

It makes me want to cry at what I feel I have lost. I feel like I have lost my child-like wonder and delight in the season. It never used to fail me, no matter how down I was or how stressed out I was. It was always there, letting me see the Christmas lights and the warm glow of my tree. I put up my tree this year and took little delight in it. I've put my tree up by myself and I always found it to be a fun experience. Not this year. I put it up with the enthusiasm of someone doing their taxes (no offense to those who take delight in doing their taxes).

If I have lost that part of myself that is able to take pleasure in the most simple of activities, I will be extremely sad. I have always felt that it was a fundamental part of who I was as a person. The person who could always find a way to be bubbly and excited, even when things were looking especially bleak. I was always the one who looked on the bright side when others saw gloom and doom. And now...

Now I don't see the bright side. I just see lights and a tree without meaning to me. The ornaments don't hold my attention the way they once did. God, that's depressing.

I thought that if maybe I wrote all of this down, I would start to feel a bit better. Work through my thoughts, as it were. But, unfortunately, working through the thoughts has left me feeling even more bleak and hopeless. Maybe this weekend I will go wander through the Town Center and see the tree. Maybe if I watch the shoppers and see them buying things for the ones they love, my own heart can be lifted.

Because right now it needs it. Desperately.

-A