I Spend Christmas Alone
And I f*cking love it.
Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a newsletter for 80s babies by Shani Silver.
Alone doesn’t mean sad. Can we cut the shit already? How many tropes, narratives, and songs dedicate themselves to painting pathetic, depressive portraits of people who are alone like…ever, but especially at the holidays? The word “alone” is so charged, and it’s been a great joy of my life to help unplug it from its source of electricity. The sadness of solitude is not a fact, it is a choice, and many years ago I decided to choose differently. I’ve had happy holidays ever since.
I don’t think spending the holidays with family should require a vacation or an emergency therapy session afterward, do you? And yet for so many of us, the people we’ve been told to share holidays with at this time of year can also be difficult people for us to share space with in general. At some point I decided I wanted some actual control over my holidays, so I changed my definition of what they were. It’s a very lucky thing to have a family you can relax around, celebrate around, and feel truly welcome and safe with. I think that is a forgotten fact most of the year, and I’m always reminded of it at the holidays, when I remember those who aren’t so lucky. Plenty of us feel extra alone during this season, so I’d like to take a moment to help us make a shift in our feelings around the word “alone” itself, because everyone, regardless of our circumstances, deserves some peace.