Let’s face it. The holiday season can be like a daunting 6 weeks of gloom for single people.
I’m here to tell you that you might feel lonely but YOU AREN’T ALONE!
I feel like there should be a HUGE dinner planned at some restaurant in December that is for single folks only. None of you adorable coupled up, matching Gap scarf wearing and Deering Oaks Park ice skating jerks allowed! (Seriously…could someone get on planning that…)
I’m sorry. That was a little bitter. All of you people in matching Gap scarfs are adorable. I promise.
I mean really, aren’t they adorable? With a beautiful story from the photographer too!
What can I say? Being single during the holidays brings out a dark and mean side of me!
But I don’t want to write a ranting post about the suckiness that is reminding your Aunt Ida that “No – you will NOT be bringing anyone “special” to Thanksgiving dinner”, and glaring at store clerks trying to push a tie/necklace on your “for that someone special”, and wishing on every shooting star from now until December 31st that you will have a “special moment” at midnight to start 2011 off on a good note.
I’m not going to write about those things because they are all about finding special stuff OUTSIDE of yourself. And dammit, part of the reason you are single is probably because you realize just how special you are. And you want to find someone else who sees that, too. Not just your Mom as she passes you another serving of green bean casserole and muses “Don’t worry, you will find someone when the time is right.”
Yet here we are, the day before Thanksgiving, having mini-panic attacks over and dreading many minutes of the upcoming season.
But instead of dreading it, I vote we celebrate it.
Crazy, right?!
Very few people (except for emotionally hurt and prone to hermitude individuals) actually WANT to be alone during a time of year dedicated to being with others. That’s a fact.
But it’s important not to turn cynical. To suppress the urge to get snarky, denouncing the whole season as a cheap ploy by Macy’s and the like to hawk their wares to a population of people desperate to buy the love and affection of others through toys, jewelry and iJunk. To hole up with Two Buck Chuck and a box of cookies and sob with your favorite love story where everyone dies. To sit in sulking anger as everyone at your family gathering talks about their relationships while you silently plot their painful and craftily detailed demises.
It won’t make the feelings go away. It won’t make the next 40 days any easier.
Tomorrow I will spend the day with one of my good girlfriends. We’re going to eat cinnamon buns (that *I* baked!) and drink mimosa’s in our jammies while we watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Then we’ll head out to a delicious dinner where we may or may not be donning construction paper Pilgrim hats. Then we’ll determine if we are up for wine and chick flicks or exhausted from the merriment of the day.
And we’re going to laugh and have fun the whole time.
Also, we are not adverse to making out with hot single men to and from our dinner destination. (I’m just tossin’ it out there…in case the Universe is listening.)
Most importantly…remembering that even though we may feel lonely during the holidays, we are most certainly not alone.
What will you do to remind yourself that even though you might feel a little alone there are hundreds of thousands out there in the same boat as you?
Photo Credit: Ed Yourdon Flickr (Creative Commons License)
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