It's not that every death of an important person happened around this time of year. No, that makes it unpleasant, but I can move on from The Death....
In November of my best friend, the death in December of the only person who has ever truly loved me unconditionally, the death in January of the only real man I've ever known, the man who told me I showed a lot of depth..... And worried about where that depth came from and where it would take me.
And it's not because the nature of my job makes this time of year especially stressful, even though it really does.
It's not because it's cold outside and that stupid song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" makes my skin crawl, as it should to everyone, but it plays on the radio non-stop as a supposedly sweet reminder of a bygone era.
It's not because I have memories of my mom, my sister, and me getting ourselves stuck in a ditch after spinning circles around on the icy road, and how it was completely silent for a moment until my mom piped up, "Girls, I'm sorry, but that just scared the shit out of me." Sis said she swore we were all just about to die. Then they both looked in the backseat, where I was gripping the seatbelts on either side of me. "I was just completely dumbfounded," I said, and that threw them into fits of uproariously laughter.
I was twelve years old. They always thought it was funny when I used "big" words.
I was embarrassed for them.
It's not any of those things.
But it is all of them.
All of these things have made or make me the person I am today.
When I start thinking about that, things seem dark. I feel alone.
When it snows the landscape changes, the wind blows, the cars on the road slide around, the green and brown disappear under a blanket of white and if the sun is shining it blinds me; if the moon is shining I am alone, in a sea of snow, driving though a place that I am not now nor do I want to become familiar with.
There is a grotesque comfort I get when my car slides off of our intended path. For a brief moment, I exist in a world that is not of my making, that is out my control, that I cannot steer in another direction unless I want to make things worse. I grab the wheel and turn into the path that slides us into the unknown.
It is here, at this moment, when I feel the most comfort.
I remember comfort sweeter than that. Sledding at Grandma and Grandpa's house for hours, going inside to a huge pot of hot chocolate on the stove, slurping it down while we waited for our clothes to dry just so we could go outside and do it all over again.
The sweet innocence of childhood that I wanted so desperately for my nieces and nephews to experience for themselves, but that they never could.
Where I had my grandparents and their innate compass of wisdom and integrity, hard work and dignity, these kids have..... me.
I am my maternal grandparents; I carry them with me daily. But I am also my paternal side. Aloof, withdrawn, moody, dark.
We still celebrate Christmas as a family, but my brother and I can't help but note that it's just us.... Our other sister lost to addiction and mental illness, our other brother lost to the criminal justice system. The younger children climb all over us, giggling, trying to get us to catch them or tickle them or throw them over a shoulder and threaten to throw them in the garbage. The older kids sit with us at the table, attempting to play Trivial Pursuit or some other game while the younger kids interrupt.
They share their memories of us and bro and I will pass knowing glances at each other-the memories, we can't help but notice, have been embellished in their minds, the way memories often are.
Have mine been the same? Was it every Christmas that there was a boiling pot of hot chocolate waiting for us inside, or was it just one Christmas? Maybe a particularly memorable one that grabbed a hold inside my brain and transferred itself to every other year?
I don't know, and it only troubles me this time of year.
Because I want to be the person that my nephews think I am, and I want to be the person that my grandparents taught me to be, but I no longer know which is which and how much of it matters.
If we can't even trust our own memories of a person, how can we trust that we ever even knew that person? What if I'm NOT a person my grandparents could be proud of? Have I rearranged all of my memories in order to feel safe with who I am today?
It is this sense of Winter, this looking out and seeing nothing but white, a blank slate that I must try to make sense of every single year, that makes me hate December.
If I don't know who I am now, then when will I ever? How do I make up for what I've lacked as an aunt? A role that has been over-sized due to those kids having a mother in name only.
It is cold, and the curtains are half-open. There is nothing but a blanket of white as far as the eye can see. Everything else is obscured.
I'm on the loveseat with one of the dogs dreaming beside me, the cat at my feet, my girlfriend asleep on the couch, wrapped in the quilt her grandmother made for her, the other dog curled up at her feet.
Everything is silent. Everyone is asleep, except for me.
The challenge is identifying which Me lives here today, with these beautiful creatures.
I love to be challenged. But not when everything is white. Not when right now I am exactly where I want to be, wrapped in a blanket of my own, filling a white screen with words in order to fill a blank slate that will never really be blank, only obscured.
And only for a season.