Christmas Joy?

Christmas has rolled around again and deliberations begin as I decide what the kids will do for Christmas, and where.  I initially thought that I would be gracious and let the kids spend Christmas with their father.  It makes sense.  Technically its ‘his turn’, they were with me last year and him the year before.  But in a real grown up tantrum moment I said stuff it, I want my kids for Christmas, you father of the children,  can go jump in a lake!  There was a sense of justice, a kind of rationalising going on inside my own head.  I have had the kids all year, done the hard work of raising them successfully (according to my own measures) and blinken heck, I think I get to reward myself on THE whanau day of the year surely, by sharing it with my special crew.

But there are other forces at play.  Dark stuff.  Lets face it, the ugly side of any break up is the inability to control the emotional torment and hell you insist on putting your ex through.  I have worked like a damn demon to recognise all the ‘triggers’, the physiological changes, the everything that goes into an all out torment and hell attack.  And I thought I had really gotten a good handle on it this year.  Queen of composure.  Not.  Even the best prepared defense is nothing when the underlying base is Scorpion, Māori and woman.  All my counselling flew out the window and a years worth of frustration at an ex who can fly around the world, take trips evey two weeks to Sydney, buy label shoes and gifts for his kids but who can’t organise time with his kids (yes, this is solely my perspective, he will have his own story) and has a million totally plausible excuses was too much.  Just too much, the taniwha was unleashed.  In a flash of complete brilliance I challenged him to come and get them – with a parenting  order or don’t come at all!  Huh!   I’m gunna have to dig out my counsellor’s card again.  Back to the ‘work it out’ drawing board.

Regression aside, Christmas really is such a special time, when whanau naturally want to be together.  But Christmas can be horribly lonely too, and I’ve obviously noticed it more since I have become a solo Mum.  I read once that our ontological vocation is to ‘be human’.   I get incredibly sad at the different ways that people, things, society etc. contribute to that notion of being.  You can feel such a sense of loneliness in some people, and a natural yearning towards healing this, which is inherent in the need to be human, yet never make a connection with that individual.  In our efforts to become something, we at times cease to be exactly what we need to be.  Human.  Woah, who pressed the contemplative, melancholy Sunday button in Otaki!!

So really, to be honest, part of the reason I kept my kids is because of the loneliness.  I couldn’t bear to be alone in a room full of people, even if they are whanau, without my kids.  and another reason, my special someone too will be at the other end of the country, as miserable as I am without him, and so that was part of the reason I reactively kept my kids this year.  I love them, and spending Christmas with them is always magic. But I do feel guilty that part of the decision to have them at Christmas is because I cant be with Mr New Guy.  What can I say, the woman in me is growing and nurturing a very special relationship with an awesome guy, and I love it when I have time to give to that.  Juggling this new relationship is not something I thought I would discuss through my blog but it adds another layer of complexity to raising a family on my own.  Because of course, the time I crave to spend developing my new relationship, which could have been over the Christmas/New Year Break , wont happen because I brilliantly decided to keep my kids to spite what I believe is an undeserving father.  Haha.  What is that saying about cutting off the nose to spite the face??  Me and my Scorpion, Māori, woman bloody waha.  As my grandmother would say - Kai tō!!