Damn it, I’m sad
I can hear the rain fall on the roof of the biggest, most expensive Christmas present I’ve ever gotten.
Rain.
At home, it would be snow, which doesn’t make a sound. Crisp air. Wheedling a fire out of my dad. Eggnog.
I love the rain, except driving in it. It just feels so odd. It doesn’t really feel like Christmas because it feels like fall to me. Often cloudy, sometimes rainy, with finally naked trees. It’s hard to think that I’m going somewhere for the New Year in another week, but that I don’t really know what I’m wearing. For that matter, I can’t afford to buy a new outfit, so what I have in my mostly unpacked closet will have to do.
And I think about the dream I had the other night, about my mom, about my grandma.
And then I watch Scrooged by myself, and about half of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. These are funny movies. The best Christmas movies, in my opinion. Don’t care for A Christmas Story or It’s a Wonderful Life.
But somehow, they still made me sad.
I miss my dad. I miss my family. This is Christmas number three without them.
I rarely get seriously homesick. I get excited when I’m getting ready to go home, but I’m never homesick.
I want to go home. I want my daddy. I want everything as it was, as it should be, and never will be again.
I’m 31. I have to believe I grew up somewhere in there. My brother’s kids are growing so fast. I’m missing that too.
My boss says she’s working on a system that might mean I could come home for the holidays someday in the distant future. That made me sad too. Because I can’t go home this year.
Meanwhile, I’ll have my first Christmas in a brand new place. We think there’s a problem with the heating or gas or ducting. The gas bill is out of control. I never thought I’d have to freeze during the winter like I did in Michigan. I’m going to anticipate all the sarcastic remarks: Mel, you live in California, isn’t it always sunny and warm there? Boo hoo. It’s 18 degrees in Michigan. It’s 50 degrees in Fresno.
It has been getting down in the low 30s for the last few nights, my friends. It is not sunny here now. It is gray, foggy, smoggy, cold. No, I’m not in danger of getting frostbite in my own home, but it is still cold. You try keeping your heat at 55 degrees and see how you like it, no matter where you live.
Homeownership is thrilling but irksome. I stupidly expected everything would go right. It hasn’t. Not even close. So I put on a sweater, hat and slipper socks and remember that it’s only going to be like this for a couple more months. In February, it will start getting warmer and prettier again. I can’t wait.
Christmas malaise is only temporary, I suppose. I’ll be cooking for Christmas, and making my own traditions and wheedling for a gas fire (though we’re already bleeding gas money.)
I’m here. This has to be my home now. But that doesn’t mean I can’t long for another home, far away.
Don’t know if it’s 18 in Michigan today, but it ain’t in Ohio. It’s 60. And rainy. Probably about like Fresno’s got it right now.
No, things don’t always go right with home ownership, but at least you haven’t (yet!) discovered your place needs a new roof. Still, a high gas bill is no fun.
My problem with Christmas this year is I don’t really want to go away. Don’t want to visit family, really, but would rather just stay here in Defiance and fix our own hot chocolate and sit by our own Christmas tree and (should the temperature drop) our own fire. I suppose (hope) that changes once we hit the road tomorrow, but right now I’d kind of like to just stay where I am.
Still, I have the option of staying or going. Well, theoretically at least. I have no job tying me down here and keeping me from visiting family. And that option allows me to prefer to stay here, I suppose.
Someone probably told you that homeownership would be expensive, but if you’re like us you didn’t listen closely to that part of the deal. The good news is that a house is expensive, yes, but it is your house! All the money you pay for services, repairs, furniture, etc., is for your use! It might seem a small benefit, but it is meaningful.
You might have a problem with your furnace, but presumably the Home Inspector would have covered that in his inspection. It could be the house is poorly insulated. We lived in a townhouse back in the nineties, and we spent a whole winter freezing and fighting with the landlord because our electric bills were over 300 a month. It turned out that there were two of three heating elements burned out in the furnace.
Of course, the landlord didn’t send anyone out to repair it until the weather warmed up. Talk about astronomical bills! Unfortunately, the next winter wasn’t much better, even with the repaired furnace. That house was just poorly insulated and poorly vented. You could stand over the heating vents in the floor and feel barely a warm breeze on your leg.