Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

Christmas is coming.

Over the weekend, I realized that I am in for a lonely Christmas Day.

I’ve had plenty of festive activities with friends, some that I hope will extend through the ‘winter break’ period up to New Years. Still to come is the Holiday Pops Christmas concert, a trip to I Made It! for the Holidays market, and honoring the Winter Solstice in Penn Forest. I have been invited to a Christmas Eve dinner with friends.

I cannot complain about a lack of merry and bright. There is comfort in my holidays.

But melancholy makes itself known. This is the first Christmas that I am absolutely without any family – my parents have both died, my brother absent, my wife and all of my in-laws left my life.

I am utterly alone. I am going to spend the rest of my life being the +1 at holidays, the extra chair, the grateful stranger, the person not consulted on plans that are not intended for me. The one who is expected to be grateful, find a little Hallmark moment, and not allow my melancholia affect others.

I feel abandoned, angry, and sad. Of course, I will survive and hopefully go on to have a good 2025. I know that’s waiting on the other side of Christmas Day. I’ll get there.

Still, I have no expectations of a Christmas present again. No stuffing my stocking. No one with whom to sit and watch the tree lights twinkle. No cards. No cookies. None of the warm parts of the holiday that come with familiarity and family.

Part of this comes with aging. And relationships ending. Several of my friends have truly ‘quiet’ Christmas Days with a companion animal and a nice meal. It is where we end up, the silence of the night and the day.

Often I sit into the night and listen to the silence, punctured by household night sounds. Often I awaken to silence and move through the house without speaking any words for hours. It is comforting and familiar and safe. I don’t want to lose that again.

I am sad, there’s no denying. I miss my life. I miss my family. I miss belonging rather than being fitted in. The truth is that I don’t fit anywhere right now and may never again. It is hard to imagine anyone loving me enough to break through the pain, trauma, and sadness to make a merry holiday.

Or me allowing someone to do that.

I know that I am expected to show up in 2025, to do my part to save the world. Rest assured, I will try. I don’t get points for that. But it needs to be said.

And I will be the +1, the extra chair at the table and I will be grateful, for the many lovely Christmases I had with my families and a new way to experience the world.

And a new appreciation for silence.